challenge
A bank’s innovation programme invited teams to pitch new ventures to its executive committee. Forty-eight submissions competed for funding. One business team had an idea for an agentive wealth modelling tool for individuals. They had no product, no brand and no way to show how it would work. Most wealth tools assume people want to actively manage their money. Most people don’t. They want to know they are on track, and to be asked when something needs a decision. They think in goals and worries, not asset classes. The task was to design an AI product that does the watching and the modelling and keeps the customer in control. We had 3 weeks to submittion and decided that showing was going to be better then selling this vision.
Client
NDA
Format
Platform
ACTION
I worked as a fractional design leader directly with the business team. We prototyped the idea in three hours. In three days we designed it and tested it for desirability and usability with 18 end users across four segments. In three weeks we built a working agent app to the bank’s security and compliance standards, designing straight to code. The service runs on a weekly rhythm. On Friday the customer says what matters for the week ahead. Foresee watches every linked account around the clock and suggests a correction when something is about to go off course. On Monday it shows what is coming. Nothing moves until the customer approves it. The model is built to be handled. Foresee runs 400 possible futures and ranks eight ways to reach the goal. Customers switch between them in a tap and watch the odds, the range and the worst year change. They can test each one against real market concerns, such as rates staying high, a recession, a weaker dollar or a crypto drawdown. They can also type a worry in their own words. To build their own, they drag what matters to them into a frame, and Foresee assembles and ranks the options. Behind the interface sit an MCP server and agent map, a capability architecture with permission tiers, and an interaction model for voice, pointing and short check-ins. The work included a brand exploration to give the product its own look, related to the bank’s family without carrying its name.
RESULTS
Foresee was one of three submissions funded out of 48, and it was shortlisted for the 2027 portfolio. The executive committee judged a product they could use. The weekly rhythm gave it a promise people understand: about ten minutes of their time a week. Anyone can model their future without an account, so the first value arrives before the first form. Designing straight to code skipped the static design phase in Figma and the hand-off that normally follows it. A decision made in the morning was on a working screen the same day. The build still produced a full tokenized UI component set, so the team took a design system into the next phase as well as a prototype. Risk and compliance got a direct answer to their first question, which is what the AI can do on its own. It can read, model and propose. It cannot move money without approval. The flows, architecture and agent map gave engineering a build-ready starting point.
LEADERSHIP LENS
Wealth products tend to show people everything and ask them to decide alone - or outsource the decision to advisers. Foresee had to be positioned to do the reverse: carry the watching and the modelling, show only what needs a decision, and leave the decision with the customer. Clarity. People give their money managing minutes, not hours. For most of them it is a weekly habit at best, not a daily one. The product is built around two short check-ins and only sends a signal when a decision is needed. Every result shows its assumptions, and depth is there for anyone who wants it: glance, story, breakdown, data. Control. The AI watches, models and proposes. The customer approves and selects. Permission tiers make that line explicit for people, for their own agents and for the bank’s agents. Nothing moves money without a human yes. Care. The product asks for nothing up front. You can explore without an account and link accounts read-only when you are ready. Confidence moves from estimated to confirmed to verified, and each step opens more of the service. The look stays close to the bank’s family without leaning on its name, so trust comes from how the product behaves.
