Huntington Bank is launching an artificial intelligence-powered platform designed to help entrepreneurs manage and grow their small businesses – and it’s not just available to Huntington customers.
The 1866 Studio, announced Monday and named after the Columbus, Ohio-based bank’s founding year, aims to simplify workflows for the financial, operational and management needs of a business in one platform powered by Google Gemini.
“We have a desire to have the most compelling value proposition for small businesses in the country,” President Brant Standridge said ahead of the launch. “One of the things that we've learned from our 500,000 or so [small-business] customers is that small-business owners wear lots and lots of hats, and there are things that they have to do every day that go far beyond whatever it is that they do in their small business.”
With the growing availability of agentic AI technology, Huntington saw the opportunity to use its own technical expertise and technical resources to build agentic tools for its small-business customers.
The program aims to relieve business owners of some day-to-day tasks. And 1866 Studio, the bank said, will be capable of providing business launch support, guiding owners through registration and licensing. It will also be able to build marketing strategy, including digital ad copy and social media campaigns. The program will also identify issues the business might run into when seeking financing, the bank said.
Powering 1866 Studio initially will be roughly six trained AI agents. Standridge expects that number, and the complexity of tasks each of them is trained on, to grow.
“Small-business owners shouldn't have to become experts in every function or in AI to build a successful business,” Vijay Konduru, Huntington’s head of innovation and AI products, said in a prepared statement.
“The 1866 Studio is an AI-powered platform designed around the small-business jobs to be done,” Konduru said. “As the product evolves, it’s intended to increasingly support the full range of those jobs across the business lifecycle, from turning an idea into a business to running and growing it, and ultimately preparing for succession, sale or exit.”
1866 Studio won’t just be available to customers. Its base level will be available to all small-business owners, regardless of their relationship with Huntington.
Standridge sees it as a customer acquisition tool.
“We view this as an important product offering in what will be a more holistic value proposition,” Standridge said. “When we create this value for a business, they may not bank with us today, but we believe this will lead to small businesses wanting to have more of their relationship with us.”
