What is Huntington's AI strategy and who runs it?
Huntington's AI strategy is owned by chief financial officer Zach Wasserman, who told Fortune in April 2026 'I'm actually leading the AI effort for the company.' He reports progress in agents: two in the fourth quarter of 2022, 50 in production and more than 60 in development by April 2026, with roughly 15 new ones entering the pipeline each month. The return target, set out in September 2025, is 10% to 15% cost reductions and 10% to 15% revenue increases from targeted uses of large language models and agentic AI; at that point 28 generative-AI use cases were live against a goal of 100. The bank's 2025 annual report calls AI 'a significant strategic opportunity' and says it is now embedded across software engineering, internal operations and customer-facing applications. The Q1 2026 call described an enterprise-wide program in five areas, and management took about $50 million out of the expense base while citing momentum 'particularly in agentic process transformation'. Technology gets the 'supermajority' of 2026 investment, which was guided to grow about 20%. About 80% of the AI comes from vendor suites and 20% is built in-house.[1][2][3][4][5][6][7]
Data as of Oct 16, 2026 · Huntington profile updated Oct 16, 2026 · 18 sources cited on this page · 140 banks profiled on this site · Markdown
What has Huntington's leadership said about AI, and when?
Statements by the CFO, CEO and the board, in date order, as published.
| Date | Who / where | What was said | Detail |
|---|---|---|---|
| March 4, 2025 | CFO, American Banker podcast | AI is 'a tremendous priority' | Explains why finance leads AI strategy[8] |
| September 11, 2025 | CFO, American Banker interview | 10% to 15% cost reductions and 10% to 15% revenue increases from targeted LLM and agentic use cases | 28 generative-AI use cases live, target 100; software development furthest along[2] |
| September 2025 | CFO, WSJ / Deloitte CFO Journal | A framework for deploying AI at scale: operating models, oversight and governance | Each deployment changes 10% to 20% of a person's role[9] |
| October 22, 2025 | Brant Standridge, then president of consumer and regional banking, The Financial Brand | AI is being integrated across operations: simpler SBA applications, assistants that guide customers through complex forms, real-time recommendation tools | The goal is 'not just automation, but practical support'[10] |
| January 22, 2026 | CEO and CFO, Q4 2025 call | Investment in digital, marketing and talent to grow about 20%; 'the AI was included in that' | CFO: the 'supermajority of the investments goes towards technology'[11][7][6] |
| February 2, 2026 | CFO, Fortune webinar | A short delay in adopting AI can create a significant competitive disadvantage | Use cases ranked by risk; human oversight for higher-impact ones[12] |
| March 12, 2026 | Chairman's letter, 2025 annual report | AI 'represents a significant strategic opportunity'; adoption 'has accelerated meaningfully over the past year' | Moving with urgency 'must be balanced with responsibility, security, and trust'[3] |
| April 23, 2026 | CFO, Q1 2026 call | 'a comprehensive enterprise-wide AI program underway' in five areas | About $50 million of baseline expense tuning[5][4] |
| April 24, 2026 | CFO, Fortune | 50 agents in production, 60-plus in development, about 15 new a month | 13 embedded data and AI teams stood up in about 18 months[1] |
| July 23, 2026 | President Brant Standridge, Q2 call | Cadence conversion used 'AI-enabled tools to automate a number of the manual processes' | Converted 235 days after announcement; 4,500 colleagues moved[13] |
How is AI organised and funded at Huntington?
Wasserman, who was put in charge of AI late in 2024 according to American Banker, runs a federated model: a central team sets strategy and handles advanced applications, and resources are embedded in each business segment. Over about 18 months to April 2026 Huntington stood up 13 such teams focused on discrete parts of the business, and the CFO describes the philosophy as 'basically every part of the company needs to start adopting it at pace and at scale'.[2][1]
On the customer side, Brant Standridge, president since September 2026, described in October 2025 AI that simplifies SBA loan applications, assistants that guide customers through complex forms and tools that give actionable financial recommendations in real time; the bank already sends Heads Up personalised insights at 14 million a month.[10][14]
The Q1 2026 call lists five areas for the enterprise program: improving the software delivery life cycle, agentic process transformation, customer-facing use cases, colleague productivity and training, and data and platforms. Inside finance, agents work on SEC reporting, tax filing and the data management behind more than 200 regulatory reports a year.[4][5][1]
Money for AI sits inside the technology budget. Over the five years to 2025 technology investment grew at a 25% compound annual rate against 5% for total expenses; for 2026 the CFO said the supermajority of investment goes to technology, mostly customer-facing digital capabilities. In April 2026 some technology hiring and spending was trimmed to keep expense growth in the lower half of guidance, and an investor deck in May lists 'BPO, Automation, AI & Other' among the levers behind more than $1.4 billion of efficiency gains since 2019.[2][6][15][16]
Not on the record: Huntington does not disclose an AI budget, a count of employees working on AI, or the outcome against the 10% to 15% targets. The September 2026 reorganisation created a business innovation and AI products organisation under Vijay Konduru, but the bank has not published its remit beyond the announcement.[2][17]
What does the Huntington profile record on this topic?
The rows below are the entries of the Huntington AI strategy profile that bear on this page, as of Oct 16, 2026; the profile holds the full record of 39 dated moves, 17 use cases and 50 sources.
| Use case | What the record shows | Status | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Agentic process automation | 50 agents in production across the business, including finance. | In production | [1] |
| Machine-learning redaction of sensitive data | More than 400 million stored documents scanned and redacted with Amazon Textract, SageMaker and Step Functions at about 10 million a day; the framework is to be reused for M&A. | In production | [18] |
| Enterprise-wide AI program | Five areas: software delivery, agentic process transformation, customer-facing use cases, colleague productivity and training, and data platforms. | In production | [4] |
| Servicing and exceptions-handling agents | Agents summarise a customer's earlier interactions, trigger escalation protocols and check proposed fixes against policy; agentic AI is also used in employee productivity and marketing. | In production | [2] |
| Finance-team agents for regulatory reporting | Agents work on SEC reporting, tax filing and the data management behind more than 200 regulatory reports a year. | In production | [1] |
| Risk-tiered generative-AI framework | Use cases are prioritised by risk level and higher-impact applications require human oversight (CFO, January 2026). | In production | [12] |
| Date | Move | Detail | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sep 2, 2026 | Business innovation and AI products organisation | Vijay Konduru heads the new business innovation and AI products organisation; Ameesh Vakharia joins as chief marketing and digital products officer. | [17] |
| Apr 24, 2026 | 50 agents in production, 60-plus in development | About 15 new agents a month; the CFO as AI strategist. | [1] |
| Apr 23, 2026 | Q1 2026 call: an enterprise-wide AI program in five areas | Technology, process transformation, customer-facing use cases, colleague productivity and training, and data and platforms. | [4] |
| Feb 2, 2026 | Generative-AI risk framework: risk-tiered use cases, human oversight | At a Fortune CFO webinar on 27 January, Wasserman says a short delay in adopting AI can create a significant competitive disadvantage, so Huntington prioritises use cases by risk level and requires human oversight for higher-impact applications. | [12] |
| Jan 22, 2026 | Q4 2025 call: investment to grow about 20% in 2026 | Digital and technology capabilities, including AI use cases that the CFO said are increasing across the organisation. | [7] |
| Sep 24, 2025 | Framework for deploying AI at scale | Operating models, oversight and governance, in a WSJ/Deloitte interview. | [9] |
| Sep 11, 2025 | The return target: 10–15% costs, 10–15% revenue | Wasserman's mission to obtain a return on generative AI, balancing urgency with risk. | [2] |
| Mar 4, 2025 | 'It's a tremendous priority': the CFO on AI | Wasserman explains why finance leads AI strategy at the bank. | [8] |
| Dec 31, 2022 | Two AI agents in production | The baseline Wasserman later cites for the agentic build-out. | [1] |
Who leads AI strategy at Huntington?
Chief financial officer Zach Wasserman, who also runs strategy and data analytics. He told Fortune in April 2026 that he is 'actually leading the AI effort for the company'. The board Technology Committee oversees AI strategy and implementation, and in September 2026 Vijay Konduru was named head of a new business innovation and AI products organisation.
How many AI agents does Huntington run?
Fifty in production and more than 60 in development as of April 24, 2026, with roughly 15 new ones entering the pipeline each month, according to the CFO in Fortune. The baseline was two agents in the fourth quarter of 2022. In September 2025 the bank counted 28 live generative-AI use cases against a target of 100.
What return does Huntington expect from AI?
Wasserman told American Banker in September 2025 that the bank was on track for 10% to 15% cost reductions and 10% to 15% revenue increases from targeted uses of large language models and agentic AI, mainly by streamlining customer journeys. The bank has not published results against those targets.
How much does Huntington spend on AI?
No separate AI figure is disclosed. Technology investment grew at a 25% compound annual rate over five years to 2025, and on the Q4 2025 call management guided investment in digital, marketing and talent to grow about 20% in 2026, with AI included and most of it going to technology.
Does Huntington build or buy its AI?
Mostly buy. The CFO said in September 2025 that about 80% of the time the bank relies on technology partners such as Salesforce and Microsoft and the three major cloud providers, and the other 20% of the time its programmers build bespoke models.
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