Steele Billings is building the AI backbone for 60,000+ churches. As President & Chief AI Officer at Gloo, he sits atop the largest data intelligence layer in the faith sector—the nervous system connecting churches to their communities at scale.
Gloo is not a church management system. It is an intelligence platform—a data layer that sits beneath the fragmented world of church technology and unifies it into actionable insight. Think Palantir for the faith sector: connecting disparate data sources (giving platforms, attendance systems, community demographics, discipleship tools) into a coherent operating picture.
Steele Billings leads this effort as both President and Chief AI Officer—a dual role that signals Gloo's strategic bet: AI isn't a feature they're adding. It's the core thesis of the company's next chapter. Under Billings, Gloo is transitioning from "church tech platform" to "AI-powered intelligence layer for the global church."
Integrates with 200+ ministry tools (Planning Center, Pushpay, RightNow Media, Alpha, etc.). Creates unified profiles across fragmented church tech ecosystems.
AI models that identify patterns: engagement risk, spiritual growth indicators, community need signals, pastoral care triggers. This is Billings' domain.
Recommendations delivered to pastors, staff, and volunteers. "This person is disengaging." "This family is in crisis." "This neighborhood needs outreach." Actionable, not just informational.
"The church has more data about human flourishing than any institution on earth—but it's trapped in silos. Our job is to liberate that data and let AI turn it into wisdom that serves pastors and the people they shepherd." — Steele Billings, Faith-Tech Summit, 2024
Billings' thesis: the American church is data-rich and insight-poor. With 60,000 churches generating millions of data points weekly (attendance, giving, group participation, content engagement, prayer requests, care needs), the raw material for intelligence already exists. What's missing is the AI layer that transforms noise into signal.
Each product leverages the platform's 100M+ data points. The competitive moat isn't the AI model—it's the proprietary faith-context training data that no secular AI company possesses.
Gloo was co-founded by Scott Beck—serial entrepreneur, former CEO of Einstein Noah Restaurant Group, and a major figure in the faith-tech ecosystem. Beck brought operational scale thinking to church technology; Billings brings the AI vision.
Beck's network (which includes connections to Focus on the Family, Alpha International, and major evangelical institutions) provides the distribution. Billings' AI leadership provides the product thesis. Together they represent the most credible faith-tech play in America.
Gloo's investor base includes faith-aligned family offices and tech investors. Pat Gelsinger (Sub-King #21) recently joined as Executive Chairman—a signal of the platform's growing credibility in both faith and tech worlds.
"We're not trying to replace the pastor. We're trying to give the pastor superhuman awareness of their flock. Imagine knowing—really knowing—the spiritual and emotional state of every person in your care. That's what AI makes possible." — Steele Billings, Gloo Partner Conference, 2025
Background in enterprise technology and data analytics. Brings secular tech rigor to faith-sector challenges—the "translator" between Silicon Valley thinking and church needs.
Joins Gloo in leadership capacity. Platform reaching ~30,000 churches. Focus on integration partnerships—building the connective tissue between fragmented church tools.
COVID accelerates digital adoption across churches. Gloo usage surges as churches scramble for digital engagement tools. Platform doubles to 60,000+ churches.
Elevated to President. Begins strategic pivot toward AI. Hires data science team. Launches first predictive models on engagement data.
Takes on Chief AI Officer title alongside President role. Signals all-in bet on AI as Gloo's future. Launches Gloo AI Coach product.
Pat Gelsinger joins as Executive Chairman post-Intel. Brings credibility, capital relationships, and tech-sector gravity to the platform.
Expanding AI product suite. Building partnerships with denominations for system-wide deployment. Pursuing the "operating system for the American church" thesis.
Whoever builds the intelligence layer for 60,000+ churches controls the information architecture of American evangelicalism. Billings is building that layer. Access to Gloo's platform means access to the data, the distribution, and the AI-powered insights that will shape how the church operates in the next decade.
Gloo's platform architecture is designed for partnerships. Genesis could plug into the intelligence layer as either a data source (providing content, programs, or services) or a deployment target (receiving AI-identified leads and opportunities).
Path through the Gloo founder network. Scott Beck is accessible through broader faith-tech ecosystem. Once inside Gloo's orbit, Billings is the decision-maker on AI partnerships and platform integrations.
Lead with technology. Billings is an engineer-turned-executive—he responds to technical credibility, data-driven arguments, and clear product integration proposals. Show how Genesis creates data or insight that makes Gloo's AI layer smarter.
Verifiable claims:
The church that runs on intelligence will be shaped by whoever builds that intelligence. Steele Billings is building it at Gloo—one AI model at a time.