Bryant University’s technical expertise and business intelligence are the perfect mix for helping Navigant Credit Union bring its leadership team up to speed on how artificial intelligence can be applied in the financial world, according to President and CEO Kathleen C. Orovitz ’04.
Orovitz recently joined a group of over 30 Navigant leaders to take part in a day-long AI training led by Bryant Marketing Professor Stefanie Boyer, Ph.D. Boyer, who co-founded an AI platform for training and assessing sales talent, has also co-authored a book on selling with generative AI and teaches — in addition to students — corporate leaders and employees about the technology’s fundamentals, strategies and practical use cases.
“The goal is to move organizations beyond generic AI awareness and toward practical, responsible adoption, with scorecards and follow-up data that help leaders understand where AI is saving time so employees can spend more time on judgment, service, and relationships; where employees need support; and where new opportunities are emerging,” says Boyer.
Navigant leaders had different levels of competency going into the training. The Navigant CEO, for example, described herself as a "basic user” who’d previously used AI mostly to rewrite emails. Within a week of the training, however, she was creating presentations for her board with the assistance of AI.
“Part of the goal was to level-set the leadership team around the ability to use AI in a safe way,” explains Orovitz. “As a trusted financial partner, we have to make sure that we’re not just putting information out into the universe. It was reassuring for me as a leader to have Stefanie talk about AI, how it can be misused, and frame the utility and use case on the need to be the human checker for AI. You cannot just set it and forget it.”
“As a trusted financial partner, we have to make sure that we’re not just putting information out into the universe ... You cannot just set it and forget it.”
Finding the AI launch point
The first step in AI training, notes Boyer, is identifying problems faced by businesses like Navigant, then determining if AI can be part of the solution. For example, "If you come back from vacation and you've got 500 emails in your inbox, AI can help you understand which emails you need to respond to right now,” she says. “We start by creating quick wins for them, like using AI for calendar or email triage, or creating a presentation.”
Navigant’s leaders are experts in their field, says Boyer, but they have to bridge the gap “between the right way to do things and communicating with AI to make sure that it gives them what they want the first time,” adds Boyer. “Once that happens, and they see that that the result is high quality, they're encouraged next time to say, ‘Let me see if AI can help me with this.’"
To determine where to start, Boyer surveyed Navigant employees in advance to assess their AI knowledge and usage. “She had our employees do video demos on how they were using AI, from marketing to project management. When she incorporated it as part of her curriculum, it was our own teammates talking to us,” Orovitz says.
Building momentum with AI integration
Orovitz describes Bryant’s training as building upon the momentum the credit union has already established toward AI adoption.
“We do strategic planning throughout the year: we're doing market research, we're trying to scan the landscape economically, and we made a decision in April to see if we can leverage AI in that,” she says. “It drove much more out-of-the-box thinking, because AI identified disruptors we weren't even thinking about.”
She adds that Navigant’s leadership team doesn’t yet have a roadmap for AI adoption, but that’s something the company is perfectly fine with. “People are immediately trying to find the answers on what AI is solving for, but it’s okay to leave that open-ended, because then the creativity flows,” she says. “I think there are an infinite number of use cases for it. It’s an enhancement tool; It doesn't have to replace people.”
“People are immediately trying to find the answers on what AI is solving for, but it’s okay to leave that open-ended, because then the creativity flows."
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The leadership session, which identified 83 practical AI applications across strategic planning, communications, project management, and daily workflow management, was only the first phase: Boyer is now preparing to extend the training to 100 Navigant managers. As each employee completes the program, they complete a scorecard to help guide follow-up. Once Boyer analyzes the data, she will meet with the company to identify where there are challenges and wins.
“At the end of this, they're going to have a huge quantitative data set of how AI is adding value to their organization, and the areas they need to adjust to make sure they can elevate everybody who might be getting stuck,” Boyer says.
Helping companies leverage AI
Customized training is just one way Bryant is helping leaders adapt, adopt, and amplify their operations using AI. The morning after the Navigant training, for example, Boyer was back on campus facilitating an AI training led by Jennifer Bryk of RebelEdge Advisory, an AI enterprise consultancy, for a group primarily composed of company chief revenue officers.
“I'd like to create a safe space where C-suite leaders can come and collaborate with each other,” says Boyer, who wants to host similar sessions for CEOs, CMOs, and other groups of top executives.
“I'd like to create a safe space where C-suite leaders can come and collaborate with each other."
The program was a mix of instruction, group exercises, and roundtable discussions. Topics ranged from risk management and governance to using AI to address friction points, measuring ROI, driving AI transformation, redesigning the workforce, and writing effective AI prompts for executives.
“A lot of people are okay with what they're getting from AI, but the output could be so much better if they just knew how to communicate with AI a bit more effectively,” Boyer says.
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Alexia Mosca, chief sales officer at Program Brokerage Corp. of Warwick, Rhode Island, was among the attendees at the training session run by Boyer and Bryk.
“The biggest thing I took out of this session is to prepare and be as efficient as possible when using AI,” she says. “If you organize your thoughts and guide AI on what your goals are, it will help you generate better results.
“The biggest thing I took out of this session is to prepare and be as efficient as possible when using AI. If you organize your thoughts and guide AI on what your goals are, it will help you generate better results."
“I'm excited to try and build some new tools,” she adds. “There’s a lot of value in trainings like this, because it can get everyone in the company on the same page as far as how we're using AI and what the expectations are.”
It’s a sentiment that Orovitz shares.
“I could go to any institution of higher learning and get the basics, but to weave it into what matters to us as a credit union — what we're looking to deliver to the community and members — made this feel like it's the right thing, and not as scary,” Orovitz says. “Bryant’s our partner because they don't just stick their head in the books and say, ‘I know how to deliver this training.’ There’s the real-life, experiential part that Bryant does extremely well.”