CoBank is a bank that its customers actually own. I studied their site and found the two places where design could matter most. First, a profile page that shows a member everything they are to this bank, a borrower, an owner, and a voter, not just an email and a password. Second, a better home for the research they publish every month, built for reading instead of downloading a PDF.
Independent concept. Member data is fictional. Not affiliated with or commissioned by CoBank.
Screen 01
The member profile
Every CoBank customer also owns a piece of the bank. But their current online banking profile only lets you change an email address and a couple of security settings, their own help pages say so. This screen shows members the whole picture instead. What they own, what the bank pays them back each year, when they get to vote, and how the bank reaches them. The patterns come straight from my CVS account work.
cobank.com/portal/profile
Your profile
One place for who you are, how we reach you, and what you own as a member.
As a cooperative, we return a share of our earnings to members every year.
Communication preferences
StatementsMonthly account statements the day they post.
Rate updatesChanges that affect your credit lines, as they happen.
Patronage noticesYour annual distribution, announced and paid.
Board electionsBallots, candidates, and results for your voting region.
You choose how we reach you. Required legal notices always arrive by mail or email.
Ownership is the headlineStock, patronage, and the vote sit beside contact details. The profile tells members what the brand promises, you own this bank.
Preferred name, phone as sign inPatterns proven at CVS on an account serving millions, identity clarity first, then security, then preferences.
Preferences people can reason aboutEvery channel row says what it is for. Consent reads like a choice, not a trap, and legal notices are never silently off.
CoBank publishes serious research every month, three reports and a podcast in June alone, but it all lives on a basic blog page. This is one of their real articles, redesigned so it is a pleasure to read. The key points come first, the chart is live instead of a picture, and the page ends by inviting you to the next report.
cobank.com/knowledge-exchange/ai-capex-cycle
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Knowledge Exchange · Digital Infrastructure
Why the AI capex cycle may just be beginning
Hyperscaler AI capital spending is accelerating, from an estimated 235 billion dollars in 2024 to a projected 700 billion dollars or more in 2026.
Digital Infrastructure research deskJune 11, 20268 minute read
Key takeaways
Hyperscaler AI capital spending is on track to roughly triple between 2024 and 2026.
The buildout is no longer only chips and data centers, power generation and transmission are becoming the binding constraint.
Rural America holds the land, power, water, and fiber routes this cycle needs, and the financing demand follows.
The spend curve
Two years ago, 235 billion dollars in annual AI related capital expenditure looked like a peak. It now looks like a starting point. Current projections put hyperscaler spending above 700 billion dollars in 2026, a pace of growth with few precedents outside wartime industrial mobilization.1
Hyperscaler AI capital expenditures
Billions of US dollars per year. 2025 estimated, 2026 projected.
$235B2024
$430B2025 est.
$700B+2026 proj.
Hyperscaler AI capital expenditures by year
Year
Spending
Basis
2024
$235 billion
Estimated actual
2025
$430 billion
Estimate
2026
$700+ billion
Projection
Source. CoBank Knowledge Exchange, June 2026.
Where the money lands
The first phase of this cycle bought chips. The second phase is buying everything around them, land, buildings, cooling, and above all, electricity. Data center operators are signing power agreements measured in gigawatts, and transmission queues in several regions are now the slowest step between a committed dollar and a running facility.
The constraint has moved from silicon to steel, concrete, and megawatts.
That shift changes who participates. Chip spending concentrates in a handful of counties. Power, water, and fiber spending does not, it follows geography, and much of that geography is rural.
What it means for rural America
Electric cooperatives are fielding interconnection requests that dwarf their historical load growth. Rural fiber routes built for broadband are becoming backbone assets. Agricultural land near substations carries a new kind of buyer. For the industries CoBank serves, the AI capex cycle is not a technology story, it is an infrastructure financing story, and it is arriving now.2
KE
Knowledge Exchange, Digital Infrastructure deskResearch and perspectives on the industries that keep rural America running.
The executive read comes firstKey takeaways in a tinted panel above the scroll. A lender or board member gets the point in fifteen seconds, then decides to go deep.
Charts are components, not imagesLive bars with labeled values, a projection treated differently than an actual, and a data table toggle so the chart is never the only way in.
The PDF is the fallbackReading happens on the page, listening pairs the podcast, the digest builds the habit. The download link survives, quietly, at the end.
Built from evidence, not vibes
These screens came out of a design intelligence audit of cobank.com, stack detection, content review, accessibility findings, and a five company competitive ranking. The audit found a strong marketing rebuild and a gap where it matters most, the product surfaces members actually live in. That gap is the work I do. See the CVS account work this builds on