Why small credit unions can’t get left behind, with Greg Michlig.

In the latest episode of the Digital Banking Podcast, host Josh DeTar of Tyfone welcomed Greg Michlig, President and CEO of CU Insight. The episode centered on how credit unions communicate their value at a moment when search itself is changing, and what that shift means for advocacy, personalization, and the industry’s smaller institutions.

Michlig traced the pace of change back through decades of credit union history, from the arrival of internet banking to mobile deposit to today’s AI tools. He argued that each wave looked like it would erase the branch, yet credit unions kept adding capability instead of replacing it. The conversation moved into advocacy, where DeTar and Michlig discussed the business lending cap that still limits credit unions and the growing need for associations to shape how AI models described and recommended credit unions, not just how search engines ranked them.

From there, the discussion turned to personalization, and both men agreed that most of what the industry has called personalization so far has been decoration rather than capability. They closed the conversation by talking about the credit unions the industry cannot afford to lose, the small and community-based charters that build trust through people rather than scale, and by honoring the leaders who built the movement before them.

Key Insights

AI is becoming the new front door.

Members no longer start their search for a financial institution on Google. They ask ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Gemini a direct question and expect a direct answer. That answer gets built from volume and credible sources, which puts a single small credit union at a disadvantage against a national bank with a much larger footprint of content. The fix is not a better website. It is a coordinated effort across leagues, associations, and individual institutions to put real member stories into the world, since those stories are what an AI model picks up and repeats. A credit union that does not show up in that answer does not get considered, no matter how strong its rates or service actually are.

Personalization means capability, not decoration.

A background photo of a member’s dog or a friendly greeting on login feels personal for a moment, then it stops mattering. Real personalization shows up when a member tries to do something and the system either lets them or stops them. A member who can walk into a branch and get a same-day exception should not hit a wall the moment they try to do the same thing through the app. Credit unions already know how to treat people as individuals in person. The work now is translating that same judgment into digital limits, transfer speeds, and fraud rules, so the digital relationship feels as flexible as the in-person one.

Small credit unions carry a story scale can’t buy.

A local credit union employee who understands that a factory’s overtime swings with football season can offer a member something no algorithm builds on its own. AI models will likely get good at predicting cash flow patterns, but the trust that comes from a person who already knows a community is harder to replicate. As the industry pushes larger institutions toward more digital capability, it needs to protect space for the smaller, community-based credit unions that serve members through relationships first. Losing them would cost the industry more than a market segment. It would cost the industry a piece of what makes it different from every bank and fintech competing for the same members.