An Interview With Chad Silverstein
The most common misperception is the extent to which AI will replace human jobs. A big value of AI is that it automates repetitive tasks and processes functions quickly and efficiently. In small business lending, a human still reviews the applications and analysis.
In today’s tech-driven world, artificial intelligence has become a key enabler of business success. But the question remains — how can businesses effectively harness AI to address their unique challenges while staying true to ethical principles? To explore this topic further, we are interviewing Rohit Arora, CEO of Biz2Credit and Biz2X.
Rohit Arora is the CEO and co-founder of Biz2Credit and Biz2X. He is a pioneer in fintech and one of the nation’s more respected experts in small business lending. He is responsible for driving Biz2Credit to its leadership position in small business lending and his company’s technology has digitized and streamlined the lending process and transformed the industry. Rohit is frequent speaker at financial conferences and is often quoted by major news outlets, including The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, AP, Bloomberg, CNBC, Fox Business, American Banker, and others. He also writes a weekly column published in Forbes.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series. Before we dive into our discussion, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you share with us the backstory about what brought you to your specific career path in AI?
My brother, Ramit, and I co-founded Biz2Credit in late 2007. We began by helping small business owners in our local community complete small business loan applications and apply for credit. We soon realized that technology could be utilized to avoid repetitive tasks, such as going from bank to bank, applying for loans with only a small chance of success. Biz2Credit became a pioneer in allowing small business owners all over the country to quickly and easily apply for loans and upload relevant financial documents to get their loan applications approved.
Today, AI has transformed the way we do small business lending by making it faster and more efficient than ever, analyzing larger sets of data points to make better informed decisions, and reducing lender risk. This has ultimately expanded access to capital for women-owned and minority-owned businesses and other viable companies that might not have had longstanding banking relationships or stellar credit histories. We have always believed in the value of technology to close the SMB financing gap (estimated at $750 billion per year) and we have been using machine learning and AI technology since very early in the company’s history to help improve these outcomes for business owners and lenders alike.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started working with artificial intelligence?
Most interesting story is the way that things have changed in our workstreams. Previously, we had to write the code over and over again, and we saw that our engineers were getting stumped on a lot of edge cases (in the early days of machine learning in the business). When we instituted a self-taught model for the first time, we suddenly saw that what was normally a 4–6 week project in our model had become something the AI was ‘figuring out on its own’ in just a few days.
You are a successful leader in the AI space. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?
- Innate curiosity — I always read up on the latest tech news every morning. I remember doing this early in probably 2015 or 2016 when we were still using machine learning. I had read an article about how companies were using machine learning to analyze their manufacturing pipelines, and I just thought we might be able to do something similar in our underwriting process.
- An aptitude toward accepting innovation — If you work in tech, let alone AI, you have to be ready for innovation to strike at any moment. I remember back at the start of the pandemic when we needed to quickly pivot our business, and we had our team completely reengineer our existing platform to meet all of the special government loan program rules in basically 2–3 weeks total development time.
- An analytical mind — Very often, the first or most obvious answer to a question is actually wrong. You need to dig deeper, especially with all things AI. The root cause or reason that an AI model might produce an answer can be completely different from what the business objective actually is. I’ve seen cases where our AI underwriting model mistakenly gave a decline when it should have given an approval — I always study those case studies with our data science team and figure out how we can reparametrize the model to avoid these issues.
Let’s jump to the primary focus of our interview. Can you share a specific example of how you or your organization used AI to solve a major business challenge? What was the problem, and how did AI help address it?
The banking industry long had been stodgy. Big banks were — and often still are — primarily focused on making larger deals their existing customers. For that reason, community and regional banks were more likely sources of small business financing. They became a primary source of SBA loans, which are backed by loan guarantees from the U.S. government. Increasingly, digitization improved the speed and efficiency of the loan application process. For instance, Biz2Credit’s technology helped the SBA process millions of PPP loans during COVID. The evolution of AI has enabled lending institutions to incorporate many more data points into underwriting calculations, thereby enabling faster and smarter decision-making to the benefit of both borrowers and lenders.
What are some of the common misconceptions you’ve encountered about using AI in business? How do you address those misconceptions?
The most common misperception is the extent to which AI will replace human jobs. A big value of AI is that it automates repetitive tasks and processes functions quickly and efficiently. In small business lending, a human still reviews the applications and analysis.
While AI will reduce some jobs at banks, it will create opportunities for those who are well versed in data analytics. In many instances, AI is enhancing the roles of human workers rather than eliminating them.
In your opinion, what is the most significant way AI can make a positive impact on businesses today?
AI is transforming small business lending by making it faster, more efficient, and more accessible while reducing lender risk. AI can analyze financial data, credit history, cash flow, expenses and risk factors in real-time. This allows lenders to make more informed decisions on loan applications in shorter periods of time, all while reducing lender risk. Ultimately, AI is helping to reduce bias, expand access to capital for women, minorities, and other business owners who might not have banking relationships or long credit histories — all while making the process faster and more efficient than ever before.
Further, AI can detect fraudulent applications by analyzing patterns in financial data. It also helps lenders predict potential defaults and adjust interest rates or lending terms accordingly.
Ok, let’s dive deeper. Based on your experience and research, can you please share “5 Ways AI Can Solve Complex Business Problems”? These can be strategies, insights, or tools that companies can use to make the most of AI in addressing their challenges. If possible, please share examples or stories for each.
- AI automates boring, repetitive, and time-consuming tasks, thus saving time and money (labor costs)
- AI can process vast amounts of data and identify business trends and correlations that previously could not be done by traditional data analysis.
- AI analysis of customer data helps marketing teams develop new content by identifying trends and patterns in customer behavior. The best example is always going to be Google’s automated bidding algorithm. We use this to pinpoint our marketing spend.
- AI reduces the amount of time it takes to detect anomalies, troubleshoot errors, and monitor the performance of IT systems.
- AI can improve cybersecurity, anomaly detection, fraud detection, and help prevent network data breaches.
How can smaller businesses or startups, with limited budgets, begin to integrate AI into their operations effectively?
The beauty of today’s AI platforms is that many of them are very accessible finally. ChatGPT really started that trend, and now there are dozens of AI transformer platforms that can be leveraged both at the user-level and at the developer-level. Also, if you look at how companies like DeepSeek have come onto the AI scene, you have to respect the power of Open Source AI. Go to a platform like Hugging Face and you will be able to browse literally hundreds of different AI models and applications that are all available at no upfront cost. Apart from that, I encourage any business owners or founders to prioritize the top 3 or 5 areas of their business that will help them drive revenue, and they should look at the cost-efficient and ROI-focused AI tools that work in those few areas the best. Make sure above all that your people know both the benefits and the risks of working with AI — don’t allow junior people to just use AI willy-nilly, and make sure everyone stays on the same page about the AI tools or AI agents they are leveraging. Always keep a human in the loop when you’re still testing an AI solution.
What advice would you give to business leaders who are hesitant to adopt AI because of fear, misconceptions, or lack of understanding?
The banking/finance industry is a conservative industry and has a history of adopting to changes slowly. In comparison, retail began embracing online commerce more than a quarter century ago and transformed the industry to the point where online shopping has become more advantageous than building brick-and-mortar stores. Today, we could not imagine a world without online shopping.
With finance, people were initially reluctant to input their financial information and link it electronically. However, as comfort in the safety of digital banking grew, increasingly small business borrowers sought to apply for funding electronically, rather than going into banks, meeting with loan officers, and going through reams of paperwork. Now we are seeing consolidation of bank branches, which are labor-intensive and expensive to maintain. There may be smaller lenders who don’t have the resources to invest in their own digital lending platforms, that’s where SaaS businesses like Biz2X fill the void. Biz2X licenses its award-winning, cutting edge lending platform for banks and other types of lenders to quickly and efficiently processing loan applications.
My advice is not to get stuck in the way things were done in the past or are currently being done. The industry is becoming increasingly automated, and those who don’t embrace technology are already falling behind those that do.
In your opinion, how will AI continue to shape the business world over the next 5–10 years? Are there any trends or emerging innovations you’re particularly excited about?
- Businesses of all types will increasingly rely on AI for real-time insights, predicting market trends, and making data-backed business decisions, such as making small business lending decision. We can look for repetitive jobs that are currently handled by humans to be taken over by technology. This will enable humans to handle more creative and strategic work.
- AI will enhance all elements of running businesses: sales, marketing, accounting, client relations. Look for AI-driven customer relationship management (CRM) tools to increasingly become integrated into businesses of all types.
- There will be a significant impact on the labor market. We can increase demand for tech-savvy workers with experience in AI to oversee AI-driven systems.
Overall, AI will augment financial forecasting, improve risk management, increase supply chain optimization, and reduce inefficiencies, thereby saving companies significant amounts of time and money.
How do you think the use of AI to solve business problems influences relationships with customers, employees, and the broader community?
We have already seen how incorporation of AI in small business finance has streamlined processes for the benefit of both borrowers and lenders. AI has cut down on the time it takes to apply for and approve loans, while expanding access to capital by incorporating other financial indicators besides credit scores into decision-making. Low personal credit scores are not necessarily the best indicator of whether a small business is credit worthy. This is particularly true for minority business owners who may not have had longstanding banking relationships or borrowing histories. However, their companies may have great cash flow and solid financial histories. In this way, AI has leveled the playing field in small business lending.
You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people through AI, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
At Biz2Credit and Biz2X, we have just commissioned research by Boston Consulting Group that showed that there is a $750 billion financing gap for small businesses in the U.S. and $5 trillion per year globally. This is what we are using AI and our Biz2X platform to solve. We want to make sure every small business has the access to capital that they need to be successful and grow their businesses. Our mission is to close this gap across the globe through technology, especially AI. To download the full Biz2X-BCG white paper, click here.
How can our readers further follow you online?
Websites: www.Biz2Credit.com, www.Biz2X.com, https://www.rohit-arora.com
Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/rohitarora/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rohitarora2/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/biz2creditinc/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/biz2credit
X: https://x.com/rohitbiz2credit @rohitbiz2credit
This was great. Thank you so much for the time you spent sharing with us.
About the Interviewer: Chad Silverstein is a seasoned entrepreneur with 25+ years of experience as a Founder and CEO. While attending Ohio State University, he launched his first company, Choice Recovery, Inc., a nationally recognized healthcare collection agency — twice ranked the #1 workplace in Ohio. In 2013, he founded [re]start, helping thousands of people find meaningful career opportunities. After selling both companies, Chad shifted his focus to his true passion — leadership. Today, he coaches founders and CEOs at Built to Lead, advises Authority Magazine’s Thought Leader Incubator.
Rohit Arora of Biz2Credit On How Artificial Intelligence Can Solve Business Problems was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.