What's Going On In Banking
What's Going On In Banking
Ron Shevlin & Stacey Bryant, Cornerstone Advisors
Stop Calling Banking's AI Adoption a Frozen Middle
39 minutes Posted Sep 10, 2026 at 1:00 pm.
AI Isn’t Frozen
The “Frozen Middle” Claim
Why AI Adoption Is Just Early
AI Is Not One Technology
The Bigger Risk: Banks Standing Still
500 Employees, 500 AI Workflows
Why One Person Can’t Own AI
Banking’s Most Important AI Hire
The Two AI Budget Buckets
Why Community Banks Can’t Wait
Party Like It’s 1993
The SoFi Playbook Credit Unions Can Steal
The Student-Loan ROI Trap
Engagement Beats Rewards
The 225-Mile Car Loan Wake-Up Call
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Show notes
Banking’s AI adoption isn’t frozen. It’s early, uneven, and a lot more complicated than handing everyone a ChatGPT license and calling it transformation. Ron Shevlin and Stacey Bryant take apart the “frozen middle” narrative, explain why banks need to fund the less flashy stuff like APIs, data access, infrastructure, and process redesign, and warn that giving 500 employees AI tools could create 500 undocumented ways of working. Because apparently “let everyone run amok” is not an AI strategy....