Innovators Q&A with Kareem Saleh (CEO of FairPlay)

This is the first installment of our Innovators Q&A series, featuring conversations with leading experts who are piloting and scaling innovative solutions in housing, small business, careers and skills, and financial health. These innovators share their insights and discuss the real-world impact of their work in advancing economic growth.

In this Q&A, we talk to Kareem Saleh, CEO of FairPlay, a company helping to build the future of responsible AI in the financial services industry. We discuss how FairPlay’s innovative technology is helping institutions improve decision-making and drive greater financial inclusion for customers.

“FairPlay’s leading solutions are helping customers evaluate their models, broaden credit access, and strengthen the financial services ecosystem.” – Shuman Chakrabarty, Head of Impact Finance

What inspired the creation of FairPlay?

FairPlay started with something personal. My parents came to the U.S. from North Africa. They did everything “right”—worked hard, built strong credentials—and still got denied a small loan to start a business. I grew up seeing how much a single credit decision can change the arc of a family’s life.

That experience stuck with me. Later, while working in emerging markets and in the U.S. government, I saw the same pattern at scale: underwriting systems that were old and sometimes just wrong. The data was incomplete and the models were built for a different era. The result was good borrowers getting missed, lenders leaving money on the table, and entire communities paying the price. Around the same time, researchers from places like Stanford and Carnegie Mellon were developing new mathematics that proved something important: you can increase access to capital for hard-to-score borrowers without taking on more risk. We ran a pilot with a major mortgage lender that showed these methods could safely expand housing finance for low-income consumers. That was the “aha!” moment.

What differentiates FairPlay’s approach compared to other solutions in the market? What unique value does it offer to financial institutions and their customers?

FairPlay is the AI enablement company for the financial services industry, by helping provide the infrastructure financial institutions need to:

• Test AI systems and agents for performance and bias,
• Optimize them to eliminate blind spots,
• Validate models and agents before launch,
• Monitor them after launch, and
• Document everything in a way model-risk teams can stand behind and stakeholders can be comfortable with.

We work with partners across banking, telecom, and fintech to help increase approval rates, improve take rates, and drive better outcomes—while keeping risk in check and getting new models into production in days, not months. Lending is just the start.

AI decisioning is spreading fast. Algorithms may shape who gets a job interview, who gets insurance, who gets flagged for fraud—and soon, AI agents may be acting on behalf of institutions and their customers. Everyone wants the upside of AI—more precision, speed, and automation—but the challenge is that most institutions still lack the tooling to quickly establish that their models are compliant and safe to scale. We help institutions do that by making AI testing, optimization, and model governance practical, scalable, and profitable.

How is JPMorganChase’s investment helping to accelerate FairPlay’s technology development in the AI evaluation and governance space?

JPMorganChase’s investment in FairPlay has helped on three fronts. First, the obvious one: capital lets us go faster on product, engineering, and delivery. It lets us do the hard R&D that turns a promising concept into a real platform—deeper integrations, AI research, and the security and scale that large institutions require. Second, they bring sophisticated operator feedback. They push us on real-world workflows, pain points, and what “enterprise-grade” actually means. That battle-tested perspective makes our product more useful and versatile. Third, they’ve been a front-row guide in a rapidly evolving space, providing helpful input and insight into how the financial services industry is incorporating AI.

How does FairPlay measure the impact of its technology on both institutions and their consumers?

We measure FairPlay’s impact the way institutions actually feel it. First, we measure business performance by looking for lifts in approval rates and take rates. If FairPlay is doing its job, lenders are finding more qualified borrowers they would have missed—and more of those borrowers are saying yes. Next, we measure the reach by tracking whether those gains show up consistently across the customer base. The goal is simple: fewer qualified people falling through the cracks and growth that expands opportunity instead of concentrating it. Lastly, we measure speed and operational load. Model governance is usually a bottleneck. By streamlining AI testing, optimization, validation, and reporting, we cut the time from model development to production dramatically. Teams ship faster, iterate more, and address compliance requirements more easily. The upshot is better models, better outcomes, less friction.

For informational/educational purposes only: The views expressed herein, do not reflect the official policy or position of (or endorsement by) JPMorgan Chase & Co. or its affiliates. Views and strategies described may not be appropriate for everyone and are not intended as specific advice/recommendation for any individual. You should carefully consider your needs and objectives before making any decisions and consult the appropriate professional(s). Outlooks and past performance are not guarantees of future results.

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