Optimus AI Labs eyes financial sector enterprise AI solutions

An indigenous technology company, Optimus AI Labs, is strengthening its push into enterprise artificial intelligence (AI), with focus on improving customer support and service delivery across the country’s financial services industry.

Speaking with a group of media execs in Lagos, its Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder, Lanre Basamta, said Optimus AI Labs has spent the past two years developing AI-driven tools tailored to the needs of banks, fintechs, microfinance institutions, and other financial service providers.

He said the company’s mission is to deploy AI in ways that improve efficiency, enhance customer experience, and build greater trust in Nigeria’s increasingly digital financial ecosystem.

At the core of the company’s current pipeline is an AI-powered support system designed to address one of the sector’s most frustrating pain points: long customer-service wait times.

He said: “Today, customers struggle to reach their banks when issues arise. Some wait 40 to 50 minutes to speak with an agent. Banks like Access Bank and OPay have tens of millions of users—no number of human agents can keep up with that volume.”

According to Basamta, Optimus AI Labs’ support system uses natural language interaction to respond to customer queries, resolve issues in real time, and escalate unresolved complaints. The platform also analyses customer behaviour and needs, allowing it to recommend relevant financial products—a functionality he described as a “digital salesperson” that can help financial institutions increase revenue while improving customer experience.

He added that although Optimus AI Labs initially built solutions for small businesses such as schools, the company soon realised that the financial sector provided a much larger opportunity to deploy AI at scale.

“The financial sector presents the biggest opportunity for AI to deliver value at scale,” he said.

Basamta noted that the system was also built with regulatory concerns in mind, especially around fraud resolution.

With the new Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) rules requiring financial institutions to resolve fraud-related cases within 14 days, he said the AI-powered support platform would help institutions to meet these obligations by offering faster, more structured responses.

He said the platform can immediately engage affected customers, provide step-by-step issue processing, and escalate cases that demand human intervention—reducing delays that often frustrate users.

Beyond its work in the Nigerian financial sector, Optimus AI Labs says it has begun building an international footprint. Basamta cited ongoing engagements with Canadian partners, including the development of a digital learning environment for a major dental group in the country.

He said these international projects demonstrate that Nigerian-built AI solutions can compete globally and contribute to the country’s growing reputation as a hub for digital innovation.

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Reflecting on the company’s recent move into an office space previously occupied by fintech lender Kuda, Basamta said the relocation is symbolic of the trajectory the company hopes to follow as it scales its operations.

He noted that the expansion reflects both growing demand for enterprise AI solutions and Optimus AI Labs’ ambition to play a more prominent role in Nigeria’s technology ecosystem.

Basamta thanked the company’s partners and supporters, saying the progress made so far shows that “big things can emerge from small beginnings when powered by AI’s transformative capabilities.”