The DAIS 2026 Speaker Spotlight is a series where we hand the mic to the speakers heading to Data + AI Summit and let them answer five short questions, in their own voice, no press-release polish.
Below, Erin Butler on why AI is reshaping the business model of financial services, what separates experimentation from impact, and why the conversation she's bringing to DAIS isn't about models, it's about context and control. Lightly edited for length, otherwise the words are hers.
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Context so AI understands the business, and control so the business can trust AI.
— Erin Butler
The topic
What is your talk about, and who is it for?
My talk is about why AI is becoming a business model shift in financial services, and why the firms that win will be the ones that pair intelligence with real context and real control.
Why this, why now
What's changed in the last 6–12 months that makes this topic urgent right now?
Because this moment has moved out of the lab and into the market. AI agents are getting better and faster, customer expectations are changing, and the old sources of advantage in financial services are starting to weaken. But this is not just about adopting AI quickly. It is about adopting it in a way that actually works for this industry. Without context, AI does not understand your business. Without control, you cannot trust it, scale it, or put it in front of customers. That is why this conversation matters now.
The personal stake
Why are you the person giving this talk?
I spend a lot of time with financial services leaders who are trying to figure out what is real, what is hype, and what it actually takes to move from experimentation to impact. What I see over and over is that success is not about access to a model. Everyone has that. The real differentiator is whether you can connect AI to your enterprise reality, your data, your decisions, your workflows, and your governance. That is where this gets interesting, and that is why I am excited to tell this story.
What you'll leave with
What will someone be able to do on Monday morning that they couldn't do before?
I want people to walk away with a much sharper lens for thinking about AI in financial services: where value is at risk, where new value can be created, and what has to be true to capture it. More specifically, I want them to understand that better models alone will not change outcomes. You need context so AI can reason in the language of your business, and you need control so it can operate in a way that is trusted, auditable, and ready for scale.
The bigger picture
How does this fit into where Databricks, and data and AI more broadly, is heading?
The bigger shift is that AI is moving from a tool people use to part of how firms operate. That is a much bigger change than most people realize. The firms that lead will not just be the ones with the best models. They will be the ones that can combine intelligence with context and control, context so AI understands the business, and control so the business can trust AI. And that is exactly why I am excited about the conversations happening in this forum, from Morgan Stanley and JPMorganChase to Mastercard and RBC Capital Markets. This is a chance to hear from leaders who are not talking about AI in theory, but in the context of real institutions, real constraints, and real transformation already underway.
Part of the DAIS 2026 Speaker Spotlight series, more voices dropping in the weeks ahead. Got a DAIS speaker you'd love to hear from next? Mention them in the comments, we're always listening.
