CATEGORY TAG
Gen AI and The Enterprise: An Amex Ventures Perspective
Kevin Weber
Managing Director,
Amex Ventures
In the ever-evolving landscape of technology, we believe that Generative AI (Gen AI) is poised to be transformational across various industries. Amex Ventures, in partnership with colleagues from American Express’ Technology, Servicing, Strategy, and Amex Digital Labs business units, brought together a group of founders focused on helping drive Gen AI adoption at enterprises of all sizes.
We wanted to hear from these founders to get their views on potential future Gen AI use cases, while also sharing a bit about the ways in which American Express is leveraging Gen AI. The Amex team was joined by leaders from the following companies:
At the event, American Express’ Chief Technology Officer Hilary Packer shared insights on our Gen AI focus areas in a conversation with Amex Ventures Managing Director & Head of Enterprise Software investing, Kevin Weber. We’ve summarized those key principles below, for founders and others to get a better understanding of our Gen AI priorities.
Our Gen AI Takeaways
American Express is harnessing Gen AI to test and learn in three primary areas: productivity, protection, and growth.
- Productivity: At the heart of Amex’s Gen AI initiatives is the drive to enhance operational efficiency. We’ve had several successful pilots, with some scaling to broader adoption and others still being rolled out. We will continue to focus on working with companies and technologies that can help our colleagues, our Card Members and our partners work more efficiently at – and with – American Express. We are currently scaling the following successful pilots:
- Travel Counselor Assist, which provides travel planning support to our travel counselors servicing Platinum and Centurion Card Members with high quality and efficient travel recommendations and insights.
- AI coding assistant, which aids American Express software engineers with code suggestions to speed product development and make their jobs easier.
- Search Optimization, which makes semantic search possible and allows customers to quickly find answers to their questions within the American Express mobile app.
- Protection: American Express remains committed to our brand promise of trust and security. We were among the first financial services companies to embrace AI technologies, starting with our use of machine learning in 2010, and American Express has had the lowest U.S fraud rates among the major card networks for many years.
- Growth: The use of Gen AI at American Express is aligned with our general approach of leveraging data to drive growth and enhance customer experiences. Amex’s closed-loop model and trusted relationships with premium customers and merchants provide a solid foundation for creating innovative solutions.
Amex Ventures is selective when choosing Gen AI startups to invest in, back for pilot opportunities with American Express or both. While there is not one-size-fits all criteria, a few things we are looking for include:
- Visionary Leadership: Founders with clear vision, relevant expertise, and resilience are highly valued.
- Operational Discipline: Startups must operate responsibly, with a focus on efficiency and a disciplined approach to scaling.
- Prepared to Scale: Companies with a long-term view towards partnership and readiness to address any security, scalability, and capability challenges that come with growth.
- Risk & Compliance: Founders must operate responsibly with their technology and have systems in place that allow for issues to be immediately addressed and remedied.
At Amex Ventures, we are excited for the opportunity to invest in companies that satisfy these core tenets. We are actively seeking startups that are helping to create the responsible foundation of Gen AI deployment across financial services. If you see the world similarly, we’d love to hear from you. You can reach us at amexventures@aexp.com.