Are banks becoming irrelevant in the AI era? With Theodora Lau | FG Podcast 158

Meet Theodora Lau — founder of Unconventional Ventures, author of Banking on (Artificial) Intelligence (2025), co-author of The Metaverse Economy (2023) and Beyond Good (2021), and host of the One Vision podcast.

Theo was named one of American Banker's Most Influential Women in FinTech, ranked No. 1 Women in Finance by Onalytica, and is a regular contributor to Forbes, FinTech Futures, BBC News, MIT Tech Review, and Harvard Business Review. Her work focuses on the intersection of financial services, technology, and humanity — particularly inclusion, longevity, and the populations that get left behind when industries restructure.

In this episode, Theo and Igor unpack what the AI-native era actually means for digital banks. The conversation moves from Theo's own "iPhone moment" — buying the first-gen iPhone in 2007 and racking up $300 in roaming charges because she couldn't stop checking the weather app — to the harder, present-tense question: banks built their value around being the institution customers turn to.Today, 53% of US consumers consult AI tools for financial advice, and the entire conversation — user to frontier model — happens without the bank in the loop. What does an AI-native bank actually look like, what should banks do in the next two to three years, and what happens to the people the industry leaves behind?

Episode with Brett King https://youtu.be/L_ghYX-whCg

Customers now have all the tools, with Theodora Lau | FG x Finovate Europe 2026: https://youtu.be/u6EroRKGd1M

Timestamps:

00:42 – Topic framing: digital banks in the AI-native era

04:00 – Intent and context: what banks know vs. what they need to know

06:58 – What banks should do in the next two to three years

09:00 – Data strategy, system updates, and organizational change

13:00 – Trust as guardrails: the highway analogy

13:25 – What does an AI-native bank actually look like?

15:00 – Where AI should not replace humans: wealth, credit, regulator-facing decisions

17:00 – The Wells Fargo phone-call culture and the "do I want to talk to a bot?" debate

19:37 – Why people call credit union call centers and it's not for answers

20:30 – The big shift: banks becoming irrelevant in AI conversations

22:00 – Who owns the new "street"? Apple, Anthropic, OpenAI?

23:32 – 53% of US consumers consult AI for financial advice (JD Power)

25:00 – From SEO to GEO: the wild west of AI-native discovery

27:00 – Who's getting left behind?

28:30 – Layoffs, shareholder value, and the human cost

The Fintech Garden is hosted by Igor Tomych, founder and CEO of DashDevs, and Dumitru Condrea, founder of Novafin. All conversations revolve around the world of fintech, movers and shakers, and how decisions are made. Make sure to tune in to stay ahead of the curve when it comes to how the world of finance is evolving before our eyes.

Follow us: https://fintech.garden

Check out DashDevs: https://dashdevs.com

Connect with our hosts and guest:

Igor Tomych https://www.linkedin.com/in/igortomych/

Dumitru Condrea https://www.linkedin.com/in/dcondrea/

Theodora Lau https://www.linkedin.com/in/theodoralau/