Financial services has long been at the forefront of adopting technological innovations. Today, generative AI and agentic systems are redefining the industry, from customer interactions to enterprise operations.
Prem Natarajan, executive vice president, chief scientist and head of AI at Capital One, joined the NVIDIA AI Podcast to discuss how his organization is building proprietary AI systems that deliver value to over 100 million customers.
“AI is at its best when it transfers cognitive burden from the human to the system,” Natarajan said. “It allows the human to have that much more fun and experience that magic.”
Capital One’s strategy centers on a “test, iterate, refine” approach that balances innovation with rigorous risk management. The company’s first agentic AI deployment is a chat concierge that helps customers navigate the car-buying process, such as by scheduling test drives.
Rather than simply integrating third-party solutions, Capital One builds proprietary AI technologies that tap into its vast data repositories.
“Your data advantage is your AI advantage,” Natarajan emphasized. “Proprietary data allows you to build proprietary AI that provides enduring differentiated services for your customers.”
Capital One’s AI architecture combines open-weight foundation models with deep customizations using proprietary data. This approach, Natarajan explained, supports the creation of specialized models that excel at financial services tasks and integrate into multi-agent workflows that can take actions.
Natarajan stressed that responsible AI is fundamental to Capital One’s design process. His teams take a “responsibility through design” approach, implementing robust guardrails — both technological and human-in-the-loop — to ensure safe deployment.
The concept of an AI factory — where raw data is processed and refined to produce actionable intelligence — aligns naturally with Capital One’s cloud-native technology stack. AI factories incorporate all the components required for financial institutions to generate intelligence, combining hardware, software, networking and development tools for AI applications in financial services.
Time Stamps
1:10 – Natarajan’s background and journey to Capital One.
4:50 – Capital One’s approach to generative AI and agentic systems.
15:56 – Challenges in implementing responsible AI in financial services.
28:46 – AI factories and Capital One’s cloud-native advantage.
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