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  • Oct
    7

    CS Seminar: How AI is Transforming Financial Services - 3 applications and 3 challenges (Jay Budzik)

    Department of Computer Science (CS)

    12:00 PM Mudd Hall ( formerly Seeley G. Mudd Library)

    EVENT DETAILS

    Monday / CS Seminar
    October 7th / 12:00 PM
    Hybrid / Mudd 3514

    Speaker
    Jay Budzik, Fifth Third Bank

    Talk Title
    How AI is Transforming Financial Services - 3 applications and 3 challenges

    Abstract
    AI is transforming many industries, and financial services is no exception. But banking is high-stakes and highly-regulated. As such, progress adopting AI in finance has been slow compared to other industries. Concerns over transparency, bias and fairness, and risk of inaccuracies have prevented banks from using AI to enhance products and services. However, new methods have emerged that make banking ripe for AI transformation now more than ever before. This talk will describe how we've overcome challenges to unlock the benefits of AI even in highly-regulated financial services applications. I'll describe three applications in which AI is rapidly transforming banking: consumer lending, customer service, and back office/operations, with case studies and examples of real-world impact. I will show how game-theoretic methods are used to explain the outputs of even complex models to everyday people. I'll describe how we make models more fair and equitable, leading to improved outcomes for women and people of color. Finally, I'll describe how predetermined conversation flows and human-machine collaborations are being used to manage risk of inaccuracies so that even the latest GPT models can be used safely. I'll conclude each section with open research questions and leave plenty of time for Q&A.

    Biography
    Jay Budzik is Senior Vice President, Director AI/ML Model Development and Operations at Fifth Third Bank. Jay oversees AI transformation for consumer products and operations for this Fortune 500 bank with over $200B in assets. Prior to Fifth Third, Jay was CTO at Zest AI, where he led the product, engineering and data science teams that pioneered the use of AI in consumer lending. Zest models are currently used to underwrite over $1 trillion USD in consumer loans annually for clients such as Citibank, Freddie Mac, Discover, Truist, and 100s of credit unions. Earlier in his career, Jay founded and/or served as CTO of several enterprise software companies that used AI to create competitive advantage in the digital advertising and media industries. Jay holds over 40 patents related to his work in AI and machine learning. He earned a Ph. D. in Computer Science from Northwestern University where he was President’s Fellow, and a B. S. with honors in Computer Science from The University of Chicago. He lives in Pasadena, California.

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    Zoom: https://northwestern.zoom.us/j/96991416091
    Panopto: https://northwestern.hosted.panopto.com/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=edf85617-940c-4791-a310-b1f6011c8465
    DEI Minute: TBA

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    TIME Monday, October 7, 2024 at 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM

    LOCATION Mudd Hall ( formerly Seeley G. Mudd Library)    map it

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    CONTACT Wynante R Charles    wynante.charles@northwestern.edu EMAIL

    CALENDAR Department of Computer Science (CS)

  • Jan
    28

    CANCELLED - Public Lecture Series

    Department of Computer Science (CS)

    4:00 PM

    EVENT DETAILS

    TIME Wednesday, January 28, 2026 at 4:00 PM - 5:00 PM

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    CONTACT Wynante R Charles    wynante.charles@northwestern.edu EMAIL

    CALENDAR Department of Computer Science (CS)

  • Jan
    29

    Bagel Thursday

    Department of Computer Science (CS)

    9:00 AM 3514, Mudd Hall ( formerly Seeley G. Mudd Library)

    EVENT DETAILS

    TIME Thursday, January 29, 2026 at 9:00 AM - 11:00 AM

    LOCATION 3514, Mudd Hall ( formerly Seeley G. Mudd Library)    map it

    ADD TO CALENDAR

    CONTACT Wynante R Charles    wynante.charles@northwestern.edu EMAIL

    CALENDAR Department of Computer Science (CS)

  • Feb
    2

    CS Seminar

    Department of Computer Science (CS)

    12:00 PM 3514, Mudd Hall ( formerly Seeley G. Mudd Library)

    EVENT DETAILS

    TIME Monday, February 2, 2026 at 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM

    LOCATION 3514, Mudd Hall ( formerly Seeley G. Mudd Library)    map it

    ADD TO CALENDAR

    CONTACT Wynante R Charles    wynante.charles@northwestern.edu EMAIL

    CALENDAR Department of Computer Science (CS)

  • Feb
    25

    CS Seminar

    Department of Computer Science (CS)

    12:00 PM 3514, Mudd Hall ( formerly Seeley G. Mudd Library)

    EVENT DETAILS

    TIME Wednesday, February 25, 2026 at 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM

    LOCATION 3514, Mudd Hall ( formerly Seeley G. Mudd Library)    map it

    ADD TO CALENDAR

    CONTACT Wynante R Charles    wynante.charles@northwestern.edu EMAIL

    CALENDAR Department of Computer Science (CS)

  • Feb
    26

    Bagel Thursday

    Department of Computer Science (CS)

    9:00 AM 3514, Mudd Hall ( formerly Seeley G. Mudd Library)

    EVENT DETAILS

    TIME Thursday, February 26, 2026 at 9:00 AM - 11:00 AM

    LOCATION 3514, Mudd Hall ( formerly Seeley G. Mudd Library)    map it

    ADD TO CALENDAR

    CONTACT Wynante R Charles    wynante.charles@northwestern.edu EMAIL

    CALENDAR Department of Computer Science (CS)