Financial institutions are waking up to the power of AI in accelerating their marketing engines.

In this episode, Heather Gerdes, co-founder of Promode.ai, joins Joel and Mandy to unpack what real adoption looks like inside banks, credit unions, and RIAs. We dig into customer-driven demand for better digital experiences, how to keep compliance tight while moving faster, and why AI is an amplifier that still needs human strategy.

We also get technical about context windows, RAG, workflow bottlenecks, and the culture shifts leaders must drive.

Key takeaways:

• Why end customers are pushing financial firms to adopt AI now
• How to speed approvals and stay compliant with clear guardrails and roles
• Context over clever prompts for higher-accuracy outputs
• Scaling organic content and testing without enterprise headcount
• Culture change from fear to curiosity, and how to communicate the “why”
• Near-term AI use cases that will soon feel normal in financial marketing
  

Guest:
Heather Gerdes, co-founder, Promode.ai

Hosts:
Joel Crampton — cmoalpha.com
Mandy MacPhee — illuminationcmo.com