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Reimagining the Future of Financial Management with Generative AI — Capital One

At Capital One, I led the creation of an AI assistant that turned fragmented financial data into real-time, actionable insights—streamlining decisions by 50%, winning first place, and proving that managing money can be simpler, smarter, and more human.

James Roberts

What if managing your finances felt less like wrestling with spreadsheets and more like having a conversation with a trusted advisor? That was the vision behind our project at Capital One—a reimagined approach to customer financial management powered by generative AI.

With a five-person engineering team, I led the design of an intelligent assistant that could transform fragmented financial data into actionable insights, streamlining decision-making by nearly 50%. At its core, our solution centered on creating a unifying interface between complex transactional records and human intent. Instead of sifting through statements or manually forecasting, users could simply ask questions—and the assistant would respond with contextually relevant guidance. This shift reframed financial oversight as a proactive, conversational experience rather than a reactive one. To bring this idea to life, we blended robust engineering practices with cutting-edge AI capabilities. We combined React.js with a secure Express.js middleware, establishing a credential-isolated bridge to OpenAI’s large language model APIs. This design safeguarded sensitive API keys while anticipating regulatory-grade security needs in financial services. Data Ingestion & Simulation: To simulate real-world banking conditions, we built a mock banking API. Using the Papa Parse library, we parsed CSV files to populate a backend enriched with more than 30 transactional dimensions. This provided a realistic dataset for financial forecasting and advisory workflows. The project’s impact was validated in competition. At the Capital One Hackathon, our solution won first place among eight teams. When presented to senior technology executives, the assistant was praised not only for its technical robustness but also for its potential to redefine how both consumers and enterprises engage with financial ecosystems.

By blending robust engineering with generative AI, we demonstrated a vision of financial management that’s simpler, smarter, and more human.

Reimagining the Future of Financial Management with Generative AI — Capital One | Expositions | James Roberts - Architect · Agentic AI