Sam Garrison, Product Growth Lead at Era chats with Global Fintech Series about today’s state of fintech and how AI powered financial technologies are set to be a game-changer for the landscape:
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Hi Sam, tell us about yourself and your time in the fintech market?
I ended up working in fintech largely through the happy accident of following both my interests and personal pain points. I began my career in consulting and corporate venture, where I increasingly spent time understanding and solving consumer behavior problems. In 2020, I joined Stackin’, a personal finance startup that aimed to improve people’s spending habits by enhancing their relationship with money. Following that experience, I had the opportunity to work on SoFi’s Relay, which empowers members to manage their finances through credit score monitoring and budgeting tools.That led me to Era where I’m excited to help shepherd in what I believe is the next era (pun intended) of how we manage and action on our money.
What inspired Era?
Era was inspired by the very real challenges we all face when managing money. Even at its simplest—handling a single checking account—financial decisions can feel overwhelming. As our lives become more complex, with multiple accounts, investments, and financial products, managing, let alone optimizing, our finances becomes time-consuming, confusing, and anxiety-inducing.
Traditionally, you needed to be an expert or wealthy enough to hire one. Era is the third option: a platform that combines education and action, empowering people to learn and execute financial decisions in one place. While fintech solutions typically focus on either education or utility, Era sits at the intersection, using AI and automation to help people not just understand their money but also manage, grow, and optimize it in real time.
My own experiences—navigating credit card debt, deciding what to do with an old employer’s 401(k), and figuring out how to make the right financial moves—reinforced the need for a smarter, more intuitive solution. In a world where financial decisions have high opportunity costs, Era ensures that managing money is no longer a source of stress, but a path to financial confidence.
We’d love to hear a little about Era as a platform and some of the tools’ latest enhancements?
Era is an intelligent financial assistant that learns from users’ connected accounts to provide personalized insights and proactive money management. With AI-driven automation, Era goes beyond simple tracking—it actively optimizes money movement, from transfers to portfolio rebalancing, helping users navigate their financial journey seamlessly.
Initially, we saw Era as a GPS for personal finance, guiding users from point A to point B. But as we built out its capabilities, it became clear that Era is more like self-driving technology for your finances—constantly processing real-time data, adjusting to macroeconomic trends, and making intelligent recommendations to keep users on track. With an intuitive, glanceable timeline of updates, users stay informed without being overwhelmed.
Era also aims to redefine “wealth” from something exclusive to the rich to a concept that applies to everyone. Wealth isn’t just a number—it’s everything you have, from assets to financial opportunities. Whether someone is managing $10 or $10 million, Era’s AI-powered tools help users make informed decisions and maximize their financial potential without needing to be experts themselves.
Read More : Global Fintech Interview with Scott Weller, CTO at EnFI
Kudos on Era’s recent funding, can you share some expected features and product updates that users can look forward to in 2025 as the tool grows?
In the near future, Era plans to launch new partnerships, continue updating its product features, and expand its user base. With the mission to make automatic money management a reality for everyday Americans, Era is making wealth care universal with AI and seasoned personal finance experts.
How can AI powered financial intelligence change the game for end users today?
AI financial intelligence really can become a superpower for end users because it allows them to do (at least) two things very well. The first is separating the signal from the noise when it comes to financial advice; there is so much content—about how to manage money, what stocks to invest in, how to approach retirement—that the valuable ideas are quickly buried.
AI will be a viable filter to understand how advice can be applied to your personal situation and help a user assess whether to adopt in a matter of seconds. The other advantage (and one I am particularly excited for) is the ability to proactively manage and adjust to your real-world behaviors. So much of personal finance has demanded attention, discipline and manual work of users.
Trained AI agents can dramatically shift the burden away from users, taking the administrative and monitoring responsibilities. This would dramatically shift how we’ve been thinking about personal finance, budgeting and even how to manage your money each paycheck. The future is really exciting as a finance consumer!
On the whole, how are you expecting the fintech landscape to transform in 2025?
I think we’re seeing the emergence of three trends across fintech:
Crypto as mainstream: While probably not a ‘hot’ take, I think it’s clear now that cryptocurrency is an asset class that an increasing number of consumers want exposure to. This will be even more true if we see changes to regulations that would allow some more tech-savvy banks to re-enter the crypto space. While there is still a lot left to prove out to make it a more manageable asset, it’s clear that consumers want more of it.
Disruption in ‘wealth management’: We’re part of this trend, but I believe we’re going to see a big shift in ‘managed’ wealth, in products like Wealthfront,
Betterment and traditional 401ks. While robo advisors were the innovation in the 2010s, I expect that the rapid development in AI reasoning and operating models will challenge those business models and demand product development.
Coupled with younger consumers who are less likely to just hand over assets without being involved, and a desire for greater diversity of assets, I believe that these established players will have to quickly adapt to faster, AI-native competitors.
Embedded finance and new regulations: we’ve seen the increased adoption of fintech—whether it’s the offering of finance products or the introduction of enabling technology—in non-financial brands, but I believe we will continue to see this expansion especially as we await a new regulatory regime. Regulation and rule-making are often underappreciated as catalysts of growth and innovation, all of which might accelerate how non-financial brands adopt fintech and the regulatory requirements around them.
What are you most excited about in fintech? A quick shout out to some top fintech innovators who have piqued your interest?
The ability to move money increasingly faster, with more intelligence, and across expanding use cases is going to radically change how we have thought about finance and fintech. When combined with better data from providers, and new standards for open banking, we’re looking at a much more open frontier to build valuable services for both consumers and businesses.
I get particularly excited about companies like Ansa’s ability to build/deploy closed payment loops, Knot API supporting more opportunities to connect and manage cards, and Footprint’s mission to simplify and enable KYC.
Five fintech thoughts you’d leave us with before we wrap up?
The future of finance isn’t social – it’s collaborative intelligence. While fintech has been busy building financial Instagram – “look at this pretty graph about how much money you wasted on coffee” -, they’ve missed what actually makes multiplayer games work: shared challenges and genuine knowledge transfer.
Traditional budgeting tools are fundamentally misaligned with how people actually handle money – they’re built for steady monthly cycles, while real life operates in sporadic bursts and seasonal waves.
Emergency funds have been replaced by opportunity funds. Modern consumers aren’t saving for rainy days – they’re stockpiling ammunition for the next asymmetric opportunity.
Financial success has become increasingly isolating – the faster you optimize your finances, the more likely you are to become the outlier in your social circle, creating a unique paradox where better money management can lead to worse social outcomes.
Today’s financial behavior is more sophisticated than ever – people are running complex plays with debt and investment opportunities that would shock previous generations, yet our tools are still focused on tracking coffee purchases and assume a standard progression of saving.
Read More: Catching the New Wave of AI-Driven Fraudsters with Data Science
[To share your insights with us, please write to psen@itechseries.com ]
