Our Executive Function series features perspectives from leaders driving transformation through AI.
CRED(opens in a new window) is an India-based members-only club that rewards creditworthy individuals for their timely credit card bill payments by providing them with exclusive offers and access to premium experiences. Since 2018, CRED has built its brand on delivering seamless, secure, and beautifully designed digital products for India’s most affluent consumers. Today, over 15 million members use CRED each month. As the company scales, maintaining this level of quality has required new approaches to product development, service, and internal collaboration.
We sat down with Swamy Seetharaman of CRED to understand how the company is working with OpenAI to create premium, concierge-like experiences at scale.
#### CRED has always served India’s most discerning users. What motivated your shift to becoming an AI-first organization?
When we started, we were building for India’s most affluent households—a user base that expects trust, transparency, security, reliability, and exceptional design. These principles have guided us from day one.
But as we grew—more products, more teams, more data—it became harder to maintain context and move quickly without compromising quality. The question we ask is, how do we make every single member in every function be 10X? For us, AI has become a huge unlock in that journey. It lets us move fast _and_ stay right, without sacrificing our core principles.
> "The question we ask is, how do we make every single member in every function be 10X? For us, AI has become a huge unlock in that journey."
Swamy Seetharaman, CRED
#### How has AI shaped the way you and your team approach customer support and product experience?
We wanted to move from transactional responses to empathetic conversations, which led us to build _Cleo_, our AI conversational companion powered by OpenAI models, including GPT‑4.0, GPT‑5, o3.
Cleo handles three common query types
Cleo diagnoses the issue, classifies the intent, maps it to the right SOP, and frames a contextual, accurate response.
We also built two internal tools: _Thea_ and _Stark._ Thea is used for support agents, summarizing multi-format conversations (text, voice, Hinglish) and suggesting next steps. Stark is designed for operations teams, helping them create or update SOPs in minutes instead of days.
#### What has the impact been so far?
Broadly, we’ve had a 14 percentage point improvement in our CSAT scores. In the three months since launch, Cleo has reached a 98% resolution accuracy rate, with 18% more multi-intent conversations being resolved successfully. Average handling times have decreased across all three tools, and session drop-offs have fallen by 31%. These are early results, but incredibly encouraging. Together with Cleo, Thea, and Stark—tailored for customers, agents, and operations with the help of AI—we’re moving closer to our goal of creating a true concierge experience built on trust, reliability, security, and exceptional design.
> "With the help of AI—we’re moving closer to our goal of creating a true concierge experience built on trust, reliability, security, and exceptional design."
Swamy Seetharaman, CRED
#### What surprised you most about the development journey?
As with any new technology, there was initial skepticism. But once teams saw results through our internal evaluation framework (which also uses OpenAI models), confidence grew quickly.
The biggest surprise has been how fast people adapt once they experience real unlocks. They see that they can be exponentially more effective and efficient with AI.
#### Looking ahead, how do you see CRED shaping the future of premium financial experiences in India and what role will AI play?
Next, we’re expanding _Cleo_ across all business lines. We’re also building tools that detect “data dead-ends”—cases where user queries can’t be answered—and feed them back into our knowledge base to improve our SOPs in real time.
Our broader goal is for every team member, across every function like engineering, QA, infra, compliance to become 10x more efficient.
As the ecosystem evolves, success will depend on how fast and how right we can act, identifying the right insights from noise and making accurate decisions at speed.
#### What advice would you give companies exploring AI adoption but still hesitant?
Every company must identify what’s most important whether it’s efficiency, effectiveness, or both, and then leverage AI in alignment with their values.
For us, incorporating OpenAI’s technology has been a true unlock across two of our values: compounding and being fast and right. The early results are encouraging, and we’re focused on amplifying and scaling that impact.
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