Advancing AI fluency at Capital One

At Capital One, we sought early on to operate like a bank that a technology company would build—modernizing our data ecosystem, going all in on the cloud and building an in-house engineering workforce. That deep investment has set us up to thrive with AI at enterprise scale today.

As we continue to build at the forefront of technology and AI, sustaining an edge requires more than just deploying off-the-shelf models. Because at Capital One, we don’t just use AI—we build AI. Delivering proprietary AI solutions across the enterprise requires investing deeply in the people who architect, customize and build with them.

That’s why our enterprise-wide emphasis on AI fluency isn’t an ad-hoc training program. It is a fundamental part of how we operate, innovate and push the boundaries of what’s possible for our business and our more than 100 million customers.

Building on nearly a decade of insights from internal learning platforms and initiatives like Tech College—which offers hundreds of courses and offerings on topics like AI, machine learning, data, cloud engineering and beyond—this year we launched a dynamic, enterprise-wide AI learning hub to over 60,000 Capital One associates.

More than a static content library, the platform meets associates where they are, whether that means building foundational AI literacy, mastering advanced workflows or getting training for specialized tools purpose-fit for their domains. We believe AI fluency shouldn’t be treated as a side-of-desk exercise or an isolated science project; it must be a shared capability across the entire company.

This is especially true for our engineers and developers. AI coding tools have redefined what high-performance software development looks like. By leveraging advanced AI capabilities to help streamline "run-the-engine" tasks, our engineers are more free to focus on complex systems thinking, architecture decisions and creative problem-solving.

If learning competes with delivery, learning will often lose. We purposely design programs and initiatives where AI experimentation, learning and upskilling are built into routines and backed by dedicated time.

To help our teams stay on the forefront of technology and AI skills, we partner with leading AI research labs like Google and Anthropic, providing hands-on training with frontier models, tools and workflows directly to our technologists.

Recently, we launched our most intensive engineering learning initiative to date: a month-long agentic coding program. It brought together over 10,000 engineers for a live learning session. From there, weekly time was dedicated to more hands-on learning, workshops and real-world coding challenges. Engineers weren't just watching static demonstrations, but had the opportunity to write code against actual enterprise technical challenges.

We continue to expand the program to advanced technical domains and ways of working for everyone involved in software development, including topics like the agentic developer experience, multi-agent orchestration and token efficiency.

The deeper shift we're driving isn't programmatic, but emblematic of the broader growth mindset across the Capital One culture. We don't view learning and delivery as competing priorities. Instead, we drive change from both the top down and bottom up by giving teams both dedicated time to experiment on their own and providing structured support and programming, including leadership support and advocacy to help foster growth.

At Capital One, AI innovation, intellectual curiosity and a growth mindset are woven into how we build software, develop products and serve our millions of customers. When an engineer deepens their agentic coding skills, that capability flows directly into faster releases, sharper products and more resilient systems. The learning and the work are not competing, but complementary. 

The organizations that thrive in the AI era won't be defined simply by the tools, use cases or experiences they build. They'll be sustained by a culture of invention, innovation, curiosity and nonstop pursuit of reimagining what is possible with technology for the benefit of all of their customers and associates.

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