Primitive Launches to Govern AI Agents in High-Stakes World of Finance

SALT LAKE CITY, UT – April 14, 2026 – A new company founded by a veteran of global banking and technology, Primitive, launched today with an ambitious goal: to provide the definitive operating system for artificial intelligence agents within the highly regulated financial services industry. The Salt Lake City-based firm, led by former Google and U.S. Bank executive Derek White, aims to move banks beyond fragmented, experimental AI pilots and into governed, production-scale deployments.

The company emerges from stealth with a clear diagnosis of the industry's primary ailment—a deep-seated apprehension about deploying autonomous systems that could risk an institution's reputation and stability. Primitive's platform is designed as an end-to-end system for creating, deploying, and governing these AI agents, offering the control and oversight that banks require to adopt AI as a core business driver rather than a risky experiment.

Bridging the AI Trust Gap in Banking

For years, financial institutions have been caught in "AI pilot purgatory." While 80% of banks acknowledge AI's benefits, significant hurdles such as regulatory complexity, data security, and the "black box" nature of many AI models have stalled widespread adoption. The risk of a non-compliant or erroneous automated action is simply too high for an industry built on trust.

Primitive confronts this challenge head-on with a governance-first architecture. “AI in banking can’t be a black box — it has to be controllable, observable, and auditable by design,” said Arun Shanmugavelu, Primitive's Chief Technology Officer and a veteran of enterprise AI at Citi. “At Primitive, governance isn’t a layer you add later — it is the system.”

This philosophy is embodied in the platform's "Control Tower," a component designed to provide comprehensive governance through detailed logging, tracing, and independent validation of every agent action. It ensures that all automated decisions are compliant and auditable. This focus on verifiable control is what the company believes will finally give financial leaders the confidence to deploy AI at scale.

“The bank executives who have helped us shape Primitive all face a common, critical challenge: they know AI is the future, but they cannot risk the reputation or stability of their institution on unproven systems,” said Derek White, CEO and Founder of Primitive. “The challenge isn’t access to AI — it’s integrating, governing, and proving the return on it at enterprise scale. Having lived this problem from inside some of the world’s largest financial institutions, we built Primitive to give leaders the control and clarity required to move AI from a pilot to a core business driver where agents execute and people lead.”

A New Capital Class: Measuring AI with 'Agent Capital'

Beyond the technological framework, Primitive is introducing a new financial lexicon to help institutions measure the impact of their AI investments. The company has unveiled the concepts of Agent Capital—a new form of enterprise capital representing the productive capacity of AI agents—and Return on Agent Capital (ROAC).

This framework proposes a disciplined method for quantifying AI’s value, allowing organizations to measure and monitor the performance of autonomous systems with the same rigor applied to financial and human capital. This shift is not merely technological but organizational, requiring human workflows to evolve in tandem with autonomous systems. Primitive's platform is designed to manage this alignment, ensuring that the impact of both human and agent capital scales effectively together. For CFOs and CTOs, ROAC offers a clear metric to justify AI investment and track its contribution to the bottom line, moving the conversation beyond abstract notions of efficiency to concrete financial returns.

“Primitive is the B2B FinTech infrastructure layer the banking industry needs to cross the chasm to AI adoption and hire and deploy agents in a secure and scaled approach across an infinite set of use cases," said Logan Allin, Founder and Managing Partner at Fin Capital, one of Primitive's seed investors. "Bank executives fundamentally understand the potential power of AI, now it is time to harness it and Primitive will lead the way.”

Strategic Alliance with MX to Supercharge Financial Data

In a significant move validating its market approach, Primitive also announced a strategic partnership with MX Technologies, Inc., a leading data platform that serves over 1,700 financial institutions. The collaboration will focus on developing an "AI-native Growth Agent," designed to build upon MX's existing data enrichment capabilities.

This Growth Agent will empower banks and credit unions to identify deposit opportunities in real-time, execute personalized marketing campaigns, and automate complex workflows like switching a customer's direct deposit. The partnership aims to turn MX's vast repository of enriched financial data from a source of passive insight into a catalyst for autonomous, proactive action.

“The future of banking is moving from passive insights to proactive, autonomous action, and that transition requires absolute trust,” said Ryan Caldwell, founder and CEO of MX. “By partnering with Primitive, we are creating a new standard for accountable AI that turns data into a catalyst for growth. This allows financial institutions to move beyond simply observing data to deploying intelligent agents that execute on that data within rigorous, bank-grade guardrails.”

Built by Insiders, Backed by Tech Giants

Primitive's credibility is significantly bolstered by its leadership's deep roots in the financial industry. Founder Derek White's career spans top executive roles at Galileo, Google Cloud's financial services division, U.S. Bank, BBVA, and Barclays. His experience launching one of the world's first online banks and driving digital transformation at global financial giants provides the company with an insider's perspective on the industry's precise needs and pain points.

This deep operator experience has attracted strong financial backing. The company is supported by seed funding from Fin Capital and Pelion Venture Partners. “The combination of deep operator experience and a clear view of the governance gap positions Primitive to define this next phase of banking technology,” said Tyler Hogge, Managing Director at Pelion Venture Partners.

Further cementing its technical foundation, Primitive is part of leading global startup programs, including NVIDIA Inception, Microsoft for Startups, and Google for Startups. This participation grants the company access to cutting-edge AI technology, cloud infrastructure credits, and expert guidance from the world's top technology firms, accelerating its ability to build and scale its sophisticated platform. The Primitive system itself is comprised of three core components: the Engine Room, which connects agents to enterprise systems; the Assembler, for building agents from use case to production in 90 days; and the aforementioned Control Tower for governance and measurement. The company is launching with a suite of pre-built agent templates for functions like commercial lending and risk management to provide immediate starting points for its clients.

To spearhead adoption, the Primitive Design Partner Program is now open to a limited number of regulated financial institutions ready to transition from AI experimentation to full-scale production, with applications available on the company's website.