Zest AI Launches LuLu Strategy Module to Expand Generative AI to Financial Institutions

Latest module in the LuLu platform series available first to MeridianLink customers, empowering credit unions and banks with advanced lending intelligence

BURBANK, Calif., May 5, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Zest AI, a leader in AI lending technology, today announced the launch of LuLu Strategy, the newest module of a first-of-its kind generative AI lending intelligence platform, which delivers lending performance insights with generative AI simulations and actionable analysis. Following the successful rollout of LuLu Pulse, the platform's first module, LuLu Strategy represents the next phase in Zest AI's comprehensive roadmap for generative AI-powered financial intelligence solutions. In its initial launch, the new offering will be available exclusively to MeridianLink, Inc. (NYSE: MLNK) customers, provisioning financial institutions of all sizes with powerful generative AI tools that they previously did not have.

"By equipping financial institutions with advanced generative AI tools like LuLu Strategy, we're not just helping individual organizations, we're strengthening the entire financial ecosystem by fostering greater innovation throughout the sector. Now, financial institutions have better insights to responsibly expand access to affordable credit to Main Street consumers, which strengthens the economy overall," said Mike de Vere, CEO of Zest AI. "This partnership with MeridianLink allows us to scale our solution rapidly across the financial services landscape, empowering regional banks and credit unions with the same caliber of technology that was once the exclusive domain of national institutions."

The LuLu platform is a comprehensive suite of tools designed to enable financial institutions to optimize their lending operations and improve portfolio performance. By integrating industry public data and institution-specific data, LuLu serves as a centralized intelligence hub that consolidates multiple data sources into a single, authoritative platform that can be customized to meet customer-specific needs. With the new LuLu Strategy module, financial institutions can access:

• Policy simulations: ask LuLu for policy recommendations to achieve certain business objectives or change policy rules and quantify the impact on automation, approval rate, and risk.
• Application insights: provide deeper understanding of borrower behavior patterns, analyze application metrics and track borrower statistics over time.
• Unbooked application analysis: identify missed opportunities by comparing pricing and performance of funded versus unfunded loans.
• Loan performance monitoring: access ongoing intelligence to continuously refine lending strategies with in-depth tracking of loan performance, approvals, automation, and fraud as well as delinquency and charge-off investigations.

"While generative AI adoption remains limited among the majority of financial institutions and lenders, LuLu bridges this technology gap, providing intuitive access to powerful predictive models and analytical capabilities that were previously out of reach for many institutions," said Megan Pulliam, SVP of MeridianLink^® Marketplace. "Using the power of MeridianLink^® Data Connect, the new LuLu Strategy module delivers forward-looking intelligence to MeridianLink customers to help adapt, compete, and win in dynamic markets. Layering LuLu on top of a customer's continually refreshed data set arms them with more insights faster for more agility and flexibility in their lending operations." 

LuLu Strategy builds on the foundation established by LuLu Pulse and represents the second step in Zest AI's lending intelligence platform. Zest AI has announced an ambitious roadmap for the LuLu platform, with several other modules being released over the coming quarters to support lending operations across compliance, institutional knowledge management, access and pricing.

For more information about LuLu Strategy and the Zest AI platform, visit here.

About Zest AI‍
Zest AI is a tech company on a mission to broaden access to lending. Since 2009, Zest AI has worked with financial institutions to use AI lending technology to better serve their borrowers. Today, Zest AI works with all types of lenders as a catalyst for economic opportunity by helping them leverage AI's potential for good. Most recently, Zest AI was named in the Forbes Fintech 50. Learn more at Zest AI and connect on LinkedIn.

SOURCE Zest AI