Competing for Recommendations: The AI Midyear Pulse Check

We're halfway through 2026, and the fintech landscape is moving faster than anyone can track. In this new episode of One Vision Podcast, Theo brings back three fan favorites — Jennifer White (J.D. Power), Tiffani Montez (Insider Intelligence / EMARKETER), and Julie Muhn (Finovate) — for a midyear roundtable that covers it all.What did the recent Finovate Spring reveal about where AI is actually landing in financial services? Tiffani shares the latest from the AI Visibility Leadership Board — why banks are no longer competing for attention, they're competing for recommendations, and why the rules of discovery have completely changed. Jennifer brings the data that captures our attention: 53% of consumers used AI in the last 3 months to ask a personal finance question. While awareness of bank-provided PFM tools runs 70–90%, adoption sits at 17–22%. Soft churn is now the real primacy threat. And Julie calls out one of the hardest questions in fintech: what's real, and what's just marketing?This episode covers AI as infrastructure, the trust paradox, agentic payments, GEO vs. SEO, and why the money leaving your primary bank might be the most important signal nobody's watching closely enough.🎧 Listen now wherever you get your podcasts.Keywords: AI, Fintech, GenerativeAI, AI Agents, AI Visibility, LLM📍 “AI is no longer being just tacked on to existing platforms, like customer service chatbot. It's now being integrated into solutions.” ~ Julie Muhn📍 “For decades banks spend billions of dollars competing for attention, and they're now competing for recommendations.” ~ Tiffani Montez📍  ”You being the center of how the consumer manages where their money flows is a potential new definition for primacy.” ~ Jennifer White📍 “ Would we all have a little agent that's running around trying to look for the best product for us and move money for us?” ~ Theodora LauTimestamps02:35 AI Gets Practical05:25 Consumers Using AI07:04 AI Visibility Leaderboard14:26 Trust Paradox 19:53 Primacy and Soft Churn25:38 What to Watch NextMore about our guests 🌐Jennifer White on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennifer-white-57257424/ 🌐Julie Muhn on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/julieschicktanz/ 🌐Tiffany Montez on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tiffani-montez/ More about our host and One Vision Podcast 🌐Theodora Lau on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/theodoralau/ 🌐Banking on (Artificial) Intelligence (book): https://www.bankingonaibook.com/ 🌐Unconventional Ventures (company): https://www.unconventionalventures.com/ 🌐Listen to all One Vision Podcast episodes by visiting: https://shows.acast.com/one-vision One Vision Podcast is a fintech, banking, and AI podcast hosted by Theodora Lau (Founder, Unconventional Ventures; author of Banking on (Artificial) Intelligence). One Vision goes beyond the headlines on AI, agentic commerce, digital banking, financial inclusion, and the future of money — with founders, analysts, venture capitalists, technologists, and operators building the next chapter of financial services. New episodes weekly. Featured guests include leaders from Ant, bunq, J.D. Power, Forrester, IBM, Microsoft, Salesforce, SAS, SAP, and Wall Street Journal. Recognized in American Banker's Top 20 Most Influential Women in Fintech. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.