After editions in London and New York, Indicium AI's Applied AI Symposium came to São Paulo for the first time, bringing together leaders from B3, Itaú, Bradesco, Santander, Portobank, BTG, Cielo, Picpay and other financial institutions at Connect House.
Daniel Avancini, Chief AI Transformation Officer at Indicium AI, opened the afternoon by welcoming guests, introducing Indicium AI's work with financial institutions and walking through the agenda for the day.
AI in Financial Services: The Window of Opportunity
Fabio Cossini, Financial Services Business Development Manager at AWS, gave the first keynote. He argued that AI has moved from answering questions to executing work, and that with 2027 budgets being closed now, banks have a window to act.
Making the most of it means treating AI as a company-wide priority: “companies that take the time to look at AI as a whole, with an AI strategy rather than AI projects, are seeing gains in governance and in the cost of that AI,” he said.
Banks in Brazil have until the end of 2026 to meet new data quality requirements from Brazil’s Central Bank, and the data and governance foundation they build for it is the same one that will support AI at scale.
From Pilot to Operation: How Nomad Took AI Across the Whole Company
Nomad, the Brazilian fintech that gives nearly 4 million customers access to US banking and investing, went from a handful of AI pilots to 75% of the company using AI in just seven months.
The model behind it starts from a simple idea. “The tech team doesn’t own AI,” said Filipe Comparini, Director of Data & AI. “Each area has its own context and understands its own business, so that capability needs to sit inside the area.”
Each business area has a Spoke Lead who is trained first, builds reusable AI skills and passes that knowledge on to their team. Six months in, a monthly regulatory report that took two days needs around ten minutes of manual work.
Building an AI-Native Exchange from Day One
A5X, Brazil’s new derivatives exchange, has a rare advantage: it is building everything from scratch. “Most companies that were already operating before generative AI are always adapting,” said Luis Alvares, Head of Artificial Intelligence. “Our advantage is that we can think of AI as infrastructure from the start.”
In practice, that means designing every process with data and AI in mind, including whether it will be used by a person or by an agent. Critical processes such as clearing, risk and settlement still stay fully deterministic, while AI takes on more autonomy in software development, operations and corporate work.
One of the biggest challenges today is managing context, so that people and agents always work with the best information the company holds.
Five takeaways from the Applied AI Symposium São Paulo
- Move now, with a clear goal. The window for AI in financial services is open. Start from a business problem and measure the result in revenue, cost or productivity.
- Start with the data. Every AI agenda runs on the data platform, including the knowledge and context that agents rely on. Data quality work done for the regulator pays off here too.
- Put AI capability inside every team. Each area knows its own context best. Train people there first and let them build the tools their team uses.
- Decide where AI stops. Rules and deterministic systems still handle critical processes. Give AI more autonomy where the risk allows.
- Govern from day one. Classify data at the source and review every new AI connection before it goes live, so teams can move fast and stay safe.
Fábio Gomes, Senior Banking Strategist at Indicium AI, closed the day by tying the keynotes together. Capturing AI’s value, he argued, depends on measuring results and treating people, processes and products as one cycle, where trained people improve processes and better processes lead to better products. “Everyone here has access to the same models and the same technology,” he said. “The ones who lead will be those who build the structure to put AI into production.”
Building that structure, from strategy through to delivery, is the work Indicium AI does with banks, insurers and capital markets firms.
