ChatGPT knows the internet. Your bank knows Main Street.
Before committing more of your 2027 budget to AI, find out what works (and what doesn’t). We work with your community bank to determine what to fund, fix, or stop, so you know where AI can be a true force multiplier: helping you win and retain more commercial deposits while creating new value in the marketplace.
Your community bank doesn’t have a technology problem, it has a coordination problem. And your people hold the answer.
What we do
☑️ Help your leadership agree on what AI is for at your bank and what each initiative is supposed to accomplish before you spend more money on it.
☑️ Find what’s worth improving first.
☑️ Review your AI tools and pilots, and help you decide what to fund, what to fix, and what to stop.
☑️ Map workflows across lending, treasury, branches, or operations to find where information gets lost, work that gets repeated, and identify the work where nobody is sure who owns the next step.
☑️ Build a shared scorecard so your team can judge results in deposits, capacity, and service.
☑️ Put AI to work in commercial onboarding and treasury referrals, where relationships turn into deposits.
☑️ Work with your internal lead to set ownership, cross-department check-ins, and a practical way to share what your teams are learning.
How we do it
Laura brings her deep banking and treasury management perspective. Cory brings AI strategy, community-building skills, marketing, storytelling, and a focus on connecting the knowledge your people already have. Tell us about the AI decision or situation you’re trying to improve. We’ll explain which phase fits, along with the scope and fee, so you can decide whether it’s right for your bank.
The AI Pilot System
Our flagship system. Best for banks just starting or evaluating their current AI strategy. Know what to fund, what to fix, and what to stop. Starting at $5,000 for the audit.
Phase 1: Discovery & Audit
What’s worth improving at your bank, and where should you focus first? Bring us what your bank already knows and we’ll workshop a plan with you. We give you a focused brief of what’s worth improving, where to start, and who should be involved next. The audit price is $5,000
Phase 2: Execution
We interview the people who perform, oversee, and receive the work, map how it runs, and agree on shared language and a short statement of what AI is for at your bank. You get a scorecard, named owners, and clear criteria to keep, change, or stop each AI initiative. Custom pricing depending on scope.
Custom Systems
Best for banks ready to take their AI programs to the next level. Starting at $10,000
Commercial Onboarding & Handoff System: From “account opened” to “running payroll through your bank.” That’s the moment operating balances arrive. This system starts at $10,000.
Treasury Relationship Growth System: Lenders spot treasury needs, and treasury gets the full story, not just a name. This system starts at $10,000.
Fractional Partnership
Bring us in as fractional partners for your bank. We work alongside your team, and each month we help your team turn your AI plan into coordinated action and track the business impact.
Note: These are consulting-designed business systems, built with your people and bank-approved tools. Not a software platform or a core integration.
Whoʼs behind CommunityBankers.ai
Treasury depth meets human-centered AI strategy.
Laura Wetherell, CTP
Laura is a treasury management consultant with deep operational knowledge and a practical focus on helping financial institutions optimize processes, reduce friction, and improve client value. Her work is rooted in the day-to-day realities of community banking, where treasury teams often sit at the center of growth, onboarding, service, and cross-functional execution.
Laura helps banks turn operational pain points into clearer priorities and more useful action so teams can spend less time buried in administrative drag and more time on the work that drives relationships and growth.
Cory Cachola
Cory is an AI strategist who specializes in bridging the gap between emerging technology and practical business application.
He helps organizations demystify AI, clarify what is actually worth doing, and create a more actionable path to implementation within real-world constraints.
His work centers on a human-first approach to adoption, helping institutions connect strategy, workflows, and day-to-day use so that AI becomes a force multiplier for strong teams rather than one more disconnected initiative.
Testimonials
"As the financial landscape continues to evolve, effective cash management solutions have become essential to helping our customers operate efficiently, securely, and strategically. With Laura's guidance and expertise, we were able to identify and implement meaningful strategies that combined our Treasury Management offerings with the personalized, service-first approach that defines community banking. The results have been a win for our bank, but more importantly, a win for our customers!"
–Commercial Lender & Treasury Sales Officer,
$800 Million Community Bank in Illinois
"We are so lucky to have Cory working with our team as we travel down this AI journey. We work closely with community banks across the US, providing training resources in all of their functional areas. AI can and will be a huge benefit to those institutions, and with Cory’s help, we hope to be leading this charge.
-Chris Kelley,
Executive Director, Barret School of Banking
Together, Laura and Cory combine domain expertise in treasury and community banking with a human-centric transformation approach that helps institutions move from friction to practical momentum. Their work is designed for banks that want more than technical experimentation. They want trusted guidance, usable progress, and adoption that lasts.
Community Banks compete by being closest to customers, closest to local businesses, and closest to the realities of the communities they serve.
But too much of that advantage is being strained by silos, admin drag, broken handoffs, fragmented workflows, and daily work that pulls talented people away from the relationships and judgment that matter most.
We believe AI can be powerful, but only when it is applied to real problems inside strong operating structures. That is why our work starts with friction, not features.
You’re too big to ignore AI, and too small to waste money on it.
A bank your size has real AI decisions on the table: a vendor proposal, a pilot up for renewal, a board member asking what the plan is. You don’t have an innovation team or a chief AI officer. You have good people who are already busy, and a budget that has to show results.
See if these sound familiar:
• The vendor demo was impressive, but 6 months later no one is using it.
• The pilot is up for its third renewal and nobody can say what “working” would look like.
• Ask lending, treasury, operations, and compliance what “AI success” means, and you’ll get four answers.
• Someone asks, “Should we use ChatGPT or Copilot?” before anyone has asked what the bank is trying to do with AI.
• A director asks about the bank’s AI strategy and everyone gives different answers.
You don’t have a technology problem. You have a coordination problem. And your people hold the answer.
Where does your bank stand on AI?
We hear three things from community bank leaders right now:
“We’re spending on AI, and we’re not sure it’s working.” Then the first job is finding out what it’s actually producing, and what to fund, fix, or stop.
“We’re not ready for AI yet.” Then the first job is making sure “not yet” is the right call, and fixing the friction that doesn’t need AI at all.
“Our people are already using it, and we’re not sure how.” Then the first job is learning where and why, and agreeing on what’s appropriate before habits become policy.
The real problem is not a lack of effort. It’s friction.
Treasury managers in particular are buried in low-value work instead of spending more time on client service, growth conversations, training, and strategic coordination across the bank.
Before any meaningful AI conversation can happen, leaders need a clearer picture of where time, trust, and momentum are already leaking from the system.
Across community banking, good people are often forced to work through repetitive tasks, manual follow-up, approvals, mismatched information, re-entry, exceptions, and disconnected handoffs between teams.
Treasury is the bridge
Treasury is one of the most underleveraged growth and alignment functions in the bank, sitting at the intersection of client relationships, deposit growth, onboarding, product education, internal training, operations, and cross-functional execution.
When treasury is disconnected, the bank feels it in missed handoffs, weaker collaboration, slower execution, and lost opportunities to deepen client value.
But when treasury is empowered as a bridge across departments, it can help reduce friction, create shared language, and support smarter adoption of tools and workflows across the institution.