Highlights you won’t want to miss from Alkami Co:lab’s Technology sessions

Alkami Co:lab 2026 made its West Coast debut in San Diego, bringing together some of the brightest minds in banking and TechFin to explore the future of the digital banking platform. Among the many standout moments, the Technology and Extensibility track delivered a deep dive into the strategies, architecture, and digital banking solutions shaping the next generation of financial experiences. Here’s a closer look at the key insights and takeaways shared throughout the track.

From Partner to Value: Unlocking Growth with the Alkami Partner Program

Kicking off the track, this session established a strategic foundation for how banks and credit unions can extend the value of their digital banking platform through stronger partnerships. Kari Bergh, Director, Partnerships, and Josh Winstead, VP Corporate Development, joined by Bob Rohr of SRM, encouraged financial institutions to move beyond transactional vendor relationships and instead build ecosystems that power differentiated digital banking solutions.

The panel also addressed why many programs fall short, citing issues like unclear ownership, weak governance, and misaligned expectations. By contrast, high-performing partnerships are rooted in transparency, accountability, and shared roadmaps. What emerged from the conversation was a consistent theme: when executed well, partnership strategies can accelerate time to value, reduce friction, and ultimately power more seamless digital banking experiences.

Extensibility Showcase: Building Better Banking Experiences

Building on that strategic lens, the next session focused on execution: how financial institutions can use extensibility to deliver differentiated solutions within their digital banking platform. Led by Allen Cheslik, product manager at Alkami, alongside Amanda Serrano of Grow Financial Federal Credit Union, Joe Slitzker of TTCU Federal Credit Union, and Jason Hawkins of First Fidelity Bank, the session provided a real-world look at building with Alkami’s software development kit (SDK).

Panelists shared both the excitement of early wins and the realities that follow. “The power’s real, but the discipline has to match it,” one speaker noted, emphasizing that success requires ongoing maintenance. The group also tackled the build versus buy decision, with one takeaway: “It’s speed to market now versus ongoing maintenance commitment.” The session validated that extensibility is a long-term capability that requires strong engineering practices and alignment to broader digital strategy.

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Smarter Pipelines, Safer Releases: Continuous Delivery in Action

As financial institutions expand their digital banking platform, the ability to deliver updates quickly is critical. Austin Howard, Director, Platform Engineering, and Nathan Brophy, Technical Lead, Platform Engineering, shared how modern continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD) practices transform how digital banking solutions are built, tested, and released.

The key message was that speed cannot come at the expense of quality. “Quality becomes a non-negotiable requirement,” Howard emphasized. Since launching its pilot, Alkami has completed 18 CI/CD releases, with deployment times significantly reduced in many cases. CI/CD practices not only improve internal efficiency for Alkami, but also lead to more predictable, resilient releases for our customers.

Redefining Connectivity: Alkami’s Journey to an API-First Future

With stronger delivery pipelines in place, the conversation turned to connectivity, the backbone of digital banking ecosystems. In this session, Jamie Lang, Product Manager and Bhaskar Surroy, Sr Staff Software Engineer, alongside Kristi Miller of Gate City Bank and Liam Petraska of NASA Federal Credit Union, explored the shift to a model that puts the application programming interface (API) first. Framed around the idea that “data is the new currency of trust,” the discussion highlighted the limitations of legacy screen scraping.

By moving to tokenized, consent-driven APIs, banks and credit unions can give account holders greater control while improving security and transparency. One example showed 15,000 connection attempts resulting in only 8,600 successes due to screen scraping limitations.

For institutions already adopting this model, the benefits include better user experiences and fewer support tickets. As Petraska put it, “It’s not optional… the rest of the industry will move this way, ” reinforcing that “API-first” is now central to both trust and competitive differentiation.

Accelerating Innovation: Alkami’s Approach to AI in TechFin

This session pushed beyond the artificial intelligence (AI) hype cycle and grounded the conversation in what actually matters for builders. Ritesh Mishra, Sr. Director, Software Engineering, framed AI not as a feature, but as infrastructure–more like electricity than software–something broadly available, but differentiated by how you apply it.

The shift underway is from reactive banking to systems that anticipate and act. AI is already helping teams move faster when it comes to writing code, summarizing data, and streamlining workflows. The next phase goes further, enabling decisioning at scale: automating underwriting, flagging fraud, and surfacing next-best actions for users in real time.

What stood out was Alkami’s dual approach. Internally, AI is embedded across the software development lifecycle (SDLC) to accelerate delivery and improve developer productivity. Externally, those same capabilities are expected to be introduced through tools like Alkami Code Studio (currently in beta), giving banks and credit unions the ability to build on their own terms.

The real opportunity with AI lies in designing systems where intelligence is baked into the experience from the start, not layered on after the fact.

Roundtable: Using Technology to Solve Challenges and Improve Speed Together

Closing out the track, this roundtable connected platform strategy and execution back to real-world outcomes. Hosted by Sharilyn Bowen, Sr. Director, Technology Chief of Staff, and Eakta Pandey, VP of Engineering, the discussion focused on how financial institutions can use technology principles and practices to drive more efficient and more impactful digital banking outcomes.

Participants then shared their own experiences, surfacing common challenges like technical debt, manual processes, and measuring return on investment (ROI) on automation. The conversation confirmed the importance of building systems and teams that are scalable, resilient, and aligned to account holders’ needs. The key takeaway: true transformation happens when strategy, technology, and execution are fully aligned.

Build it right. Build it fast. Build it with you.

The Technology and Extensibility track sparked many honest and practical conversations at Alkami Co:lab 2026. That same spirit of collaboration continues to guide us. As Deep Varma, CTO, Alkami shared in his Co:lab keynote, “We are committed to: Building it right. Building it fast. Building it with you. It’s reflected in how we partner with you every day, continuously working in service of your teams and your users.”

One example of that commitment in action: due to strong demand and enthusiasm from both customers and Alkamists, we’re bringing back the Alkami Hackathon, happening September 22-24, 2026, in Plano, TX. Registration is now open! Be sure to check out last year’s highlight video for a preview of what’s in store. Register now to save your spot.