U.S. Bank’s innovation team recently attended the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas last week on what it called a “Future Safari.” After attending the show in 2023, the team was back on the lookout for emerging tech trends with the potential to impact the financial services industry, emphasizing AI, autonomy, embedded financial services, and the intersection of physical and digital realms.

We interviewed U.S. Bank’s innovation team to get a view of CES under a fintech lens, as well as to get a peek at U.S. Bank’s tech-forward initiatives in 2024 and beyond.

U.S. Bank’s innovation team attended the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last week. What was the team looking for?

U.S. Bank Innovation Team: We look for several things. First and foremost, we are looking for emerging tech and trends that may have an impact on the financial services industry and/or our customers.

We also look at trends and activity across several technology verticals to see if there is technology that we need to get ahead of.

Another thing we look for is specific new tech we might be able to test and pilot. And, of course, it’s great to see what other industries are doing with the technology that is coming to market.

In general, what are some fintech trends U.S. Bank is currently exploring or excited about?

U.S. Bank Innovation Team: At U.S. Bank, we cover a broad range of technologies, domains, client segments, and industries as part of how we try to develop and deliver the future now. Some of the broad trends we’re exploring at the show include AI and autonomy, of course, and how these technologies can change peoples’ lives; the embedding of financial services into all manner of products, services, experiences; how devices are proliferating and what that means for how we help people optimize their financial lives; and how the physical and digital parts of life are changing thanks to new technologies. We’re exploring dozens of trends in many sectors, but those are a few at a high-level that our Future Safari to CES helps us to gauge.

As a large bank, how does U.S. Bank make the decision whether to build or buy new technologies?

U.S. Bank Innovation Team: As a large bank, we like to focus on our core competencies and make decisions that reduce risk. Particularly in tech areas outside of our expertise (technical or business), we will look first to partner.

For example, we aren’t going to try to build our own quantum computer any time soon. We did build our award-winning mobile app, and we do build the majority of our digital customer facing experiences. Some components of those experiences may be provided by fintechs that we partner with when there is a time to market/cost/economic advantage or they have expertise outside of the banking/financial services realm that will improve our customers’ experience. At the end of the day, it is all about the customer experience.

What are some tech-forward initiatives we can expect to see U.S. Bank come out with this year?

U.S. Bank Innovation Team: While I can’t preview any planned announcements for later this year, we use Future Safaris like these to inform insights that help us create amazing experiences for our clients.

One example of how we’ve used these Future Safari insights in the past is that we were able to be the first bank to integrate with all three virtual assistants – Siri, Google, and Alexa. That work later informed the launch of our own industry-leading virtual assistant, U.S. Bank Smart Assistant, which built the foundation for when we created our Spanish Smart Assistant – the nation’s first Spanish-language voice assistant for banking. All of these were informed by early innovations in voice technology that we were seeing at CES. It gave us early signals into what would be important to people and allowed us to envision how we might integrate these kinds of emerging technologies into how we serve our clients.

What was your favorite non-fintech innovation you saw at the show?

U.S. Bank Innovation Team: We really liked the Genesis Systems WaterCube 100. It is a cube about the size of an air conditioner that pulls water from the air. It runs on low enough power to operate on solar panels and can be dropped in to emergency areas in need of clean water, or it can be used for off-grid and remote applications for both commercial and consumers.

The Federation of International Drone Soccer League out of Korea was very cool! The drone soccer league had a big space where they were demonstrating drone soccer – for Harry Potter fans, it looks a lot like quidditch. We thought it was great as it turns a fun solo activity that kids are into these days into an in-person competitive event. Also, it looks like tons of fun!

We are always amazed by the advances in big farm technology. In the John Deere booth, we saw their latest line of tractors that can be operated manually, remotely, or autonomously. They showed their custom GPS, which can get the behemoth tractors to plow and deliver seeds within one-inch accuracy.

We also noticed a trend of high-end, battery powered campers from the super-luxury concept at LG with built-in bars and entertainment, to Jackery and Goal Zero camper concepts with built-in solar batteries and rooftop tents with low-power fridges and a plethora of glamping features. Going off-grid and connecting to nature may also have plurality creature comforts in the future.

Companies and innovators are raising the bar across all industries, and we continue to push ourselves to do the same.

Group photo left to right: Todder Moning, Head of Applied Foresights; Rosa Dunn, Assistant Vice President, Digital Innovation; Cynthia A. Jackson, Vice President, Digital Innovation; Andrew Cantrell, Sr. Applied Foresights Strategist; Don Relyea, Chief Innovation Officer