Financial services has long been an early adopter of technological innovation, and Capital One is extending this legacy by harnessing generative Artificial Intelligence and agentic systems to reshape customer experiences and enterprise operations. Prem Natarajan, executive vice president, chief scientist, and head of Artificial Intelligence at Capital One, discussed the company´s approach on a recent NVIDIA AI Podcast episode. He highlighted Capital One´s commitment to building proprietary Artificial Intelligence technologies, leveraging their extensive customer data to provide differentiated and enduring services for over 100 million clients.
Central to Capital One´s Artificial Intelligence strategy is a ´test, iterate, refine´ methodology designed to balance ongoing innovation with robust risk management. One of the company´s initial agentic Artificial Intelligence deployments is a chat concierge that streamlines the car-buying journey for customers, including functionalities such as scheduling test drives. Unlike firms that rely solely on third-party solutions, Capital One customizes open-weight foundation models using its proprietary data, enabling the creation of domain-specific Artificial Intelligence agents suited for financial tasks and capable of interacting within multi-agent workflows for greater operational autonomy.
Natarajan emphasized the importance of responsible Artificial Intelligence, noting that Capital One´s ´responsibility through design´ philosophy underpins every deployment. The organization embeds both technological controls and human oversight into its Artificial Intelligence solutions to ensure safety and reliability. Further, the bank´s concept of an ´Artificial Intelligence factory´—wherein vast data sets are processed to yield actionable intelligence—integrates seamlessly with their cloud-native infrastructure. This approach encompasses all necessary components, from hardware to development tools, enabling Capital One to effectively and securely operationalize Artificial Intelligence across its suite of financial services.
