We recently had our 17th Annual QED CEO Summit in Washington, D.C. and had an amazing turnout from what we (admittedly somewhat biasedly!) think are the most exciting entrepreneurs and builders in the world of global fintech.
Given the times we live in, it should not come as a surprise that we had lots of great discussions around AI and how startups and scaleups are using it across several functions. In the spirit of continuing this very interesting (and certainly fast evolving) conversation, we wanted to share some of the key takeaways from these sessions.
I. AI is being used by all, but to varying degrees
One not so surprising insight was that when we asked CEOs to rate how much they have integrated AI to their organization on a scale of one to ten, nobody thought they were even close to a ten. More interestingly however, as CEOs listened to the practices of other peers, some changed their own rating from high to low single digits. The twofold takeaway here is that one the variance across organizations is indeed wide, and two that cross fertilization and sharing notes with others brings much improved awareness. So keep sharing, and keep learning – fast!
II. Data & prompt engineering: Common frameworks are emerging on agent workflows
Several teams are converging on various prompt-engineering frameworks (e.g., a simple one being Role-Context-Task-Format). But consistency varies widely across companies, and we’re still in the early phase of codifying ‘how we work with agents’ and the norms are evolving very quickly.
This then leads to a key skill set around writing prompts, or in other words “managing agents” developing rapidly and becoming very valuable.
In this fast evolving world, it is also quite common to use one agent to write a prompt for another agent, for example using ChatGPT to write a prompt for Claude.
While there were many examples of note here and lots of best practices, things are changing so quickly, that the most salient point was the emergence of a new “AI culture” where speed of adaptation is becoming a defining characteristic.
III. Agent + human workflows: A new sort of team
Workflows are changing very fast also, and it is clear that all CEOs now think of their teams as being made up of humans plus agents. Most CEOs are finding ways to incorporate agents into their teams and workflows in creative ways, where each one supplements the other.
One interesting example that was shared in the financial infrastructure industry involved an AI agent joining a customer product discovery call, and then based on the notes from that call writing prompts for another AI agent to create new wireframes for the new product that was being discussed. According to this CEO, just using this simple process cut down on developer needs by a factor of five when measured in manhours over a period of two months, and also enabled one product manager to cover three times as many releases in one quarter.
IV. Specific issues around AI in fintech
In the context of fintech, one very important external interaction to manage was around regulators. Most fintech CEOs were aware that regulators would likely be slow to adapt, and there were very valid concerns the community would need to answer around model drift, fairness, explainability, and data lineage with regulators. One best practice that was brought up here was to share data and insights with regulators in an open manner, bringing them along on the journey.
V. HR impact is emerging as not everybody can keep pace
A concrete example is that while common frameworks on how to generate the most effective prompts most efficiently are quickly emerging, not everybody in the organization is able to keep up. As a result, there is certainly an issue around what to do with those in an organization that are not able to adapt to this new world at equal speed.
The not so surprising upshot of this is that organizations are parting ways with what we may refer to as AI luddites (not an ideal outcome for anyone to say the least), but also a lot of thought is going into how to upskill the workforce to adapt to this new world, and how to incentivize everybody to learn and adapt their mindset.
The importance of adapting the firm’s culture to AI becomes very important as a result, creating best practices around how AI is used, driving adaption, and finding ways to share insights quickly.
VI. A new type of tech debt: some words of caution
One interesting point was also made around AI generated product prototypes creating a new sort of tech debt or friction in the product discovery and design process. The issue here was that a simple product prototype created by an AI (as in the example above) may not necessarily be easy to productionize due to a host of technical issues. The best practice shared in this case was to treat the AI created demo as a “throwaway prototype” or a PoC and then start from scratch (or at least give the team latitude to make the needed layout changes) later in the development process.
VII. Managing interactions with the outside world:
What also became clear is that while managing agents and their interactions with humans was a new and emerging skill set, managing their interactions with the outside world was another.
One example of this was an interesting theme around B2B focused businesses finding ways to educate their business customers on how to use AI in implementation. While managing internal culture and adaption was one thing, managing the customer’s adaption was another altogether. An example brought up here by one CEO as that for each dollar spent on AI development, they were budgeting one dollar for helping their customers with adaption.
VIII. Sharing best practices is empowering
A key insight is that CEOs loved the sharing of insights enabled by our conference.
In this spirit of sharing, if you found this interesting also make sure to refer to the additional content put out by the QED team around this topic for much more, including signing up to our newsletters and this blog. And most importantly, as you continue building your fintech business, do reach out to our global team – we’d love to hear your thoughts and incorporate your perspectives, especially around how you are using AI to compete – and win.
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