Alright Michel, let's start from the very top. What have you heard over the last few weeks — what's the one shift that surprised you the most?
What surprised me the most is how quickly the conversation has become much more disciplined. Just 12 months ago, people were asking what can AI do. Today they're asking where is it actually creating real value. Banks, investors, regulators — they're all becoming more commercially focused and much more in sync from that perspective.
You've been sitting down directly with banks and bankers. Where are they actually directing their budgets and attention right now, and what's dropped down their list of priorities?
Banks are spending a lot less time chasing shiny objects — and as an ex-banker, I'm guilty of that too. What we're seeing now is banks starting to focus and invest in fixing expensive problems. And those expensive problems haven't changed: risk, compliance, payments resilience, and operational efficiency. What's dropped down the list are the broad innovation programs — things without any clear commercial outcome. Technology is becoming a means, not the objective.
Where is capital moving right now, and does that match the public narrative or is there a quieter story underneath that most people aren't tracking?
The public narrative is still dominated by the big headlines — large funding rounds, we'll see those day in and day out. But quietly, what we're observing is that a lot of serious capital is moving toward infrastructure, workflow software, and regulated financial technology. The unsexy stuff. It's not exciting enough to make front page news, which is why we're not seeing it there. But that's often where the long-term value is really created. Capital is moving toward infrastructure and execution — that's the real focus.
Comparing what you've heard in North America versus the Middle East — are regulators converging around the same questions on stablecoins and AI, or is there real divergence in approach?
The destination looks very similar in both markets, but the starting points are very different — and they change day to day. I see more convergence than divergence between the US and the Middle East. Different markets move at different speeds, and some want the headlines more than others. But the questions are remarkably similar: how do we support innovation while protecting customers? How do we modernize financial infrastructure without increasing systemic risk? A lot of the modernization programs we've seen over the last 20 years have been described as trying to change an engine on a plane that's already flying. Those risks continue. With AI and other technologies, the destination looks similar — the starting points just differ.
Final question — are sophisticated investors right now seeing something that the broader market isn't? Has the market caught up to what the news is showing us?
Sophisticated investors are spending less time asking how clever the technology is and more time asking who will actually buy this. The focus is on distribution, trust, relationships, genuine regulatory understanding, and workflow integration. Those things are becoming more valuable than another percentage point of model performance. Technology continues to create possibility — but execution creates the value. The market is definitely becoming far more disciplined in the last 12 months. The winners will be the companies that solve real problems, because the ones that solve real problems earn trust and become part of how financial institutions actually operate day to day.
Awesome. Michel, thank you so much for joining us. It's been a really interesting conversation — both the ones you've been having out there and the one we just had. Thanks so much for joining us today.
Thank you. Have a great day.
