Good morning. For Zachary Wasserman, the role of CFO at Huntington Bancshares Inc. has expanded well beyond the balance sheet. He’s also an AI strategist.
“I’m actually leading the AI effort for the company,” Wasserman told me. “It’s an area of a lot of personal passion for me.”
That passion is translating into rapid change. In the fourth quarter of 2022, Huntington had just two AI agents—discrete programs running inside the business. Today, 50 are in production and more than 60 are in development, with roughly 15 new ones entering the pipeline every month. The acceleration, Wasserman said, is deliberate and foundational.
“It’s really a dramatic acceleration of agentic process transformation, which is really important, including in my finance team,” he said. That includes SEC reporting, tax filing, and data management supporting over 200 regulatory reports annually, along with broader productivity gains.
Huntington, No. 351 on the Fortune 500, a $285 billion asset regional bank holding company headquartered in Columbus, Ohio, and operates over 1,400 branches in 21 states. Colleague upskilling is a major focus, with a cultural shift underway as employees move beyond simple AI use. “We’re starting to use it like a thought partner for us,” he said. It’s aiding complex decision-making, software development, and, further out, customer-facing products and services.
To govern this, Wasserman has built a federated model—a central team setting strategy and handling advanced applications, paired with resources embedded in each business segment. Over the past year and a half, Huntington has stood up 13 teams focused on discrete parts of the business, driving data analytics and AI use cases.
“Our philosophy is that this is so foundationally transformational that basically every part of the company needs to start adopting it at pace and at scale,” he said.
A recent report found that when CFOs oversee AI projects and score outcomes, companies extract more value.
Three forces behind the quarter
While Wasserman builds out Huntington’s AI infrastructure, the bank on Thursday reported a strong Q1.
Adjusted EPS was $0.37, topping estimates, while reported EPS of $0.25 reflected $271 million in pre-tax acquisition-related charges. Net interest income rose about 33% year over year, net interest margin reached 3.24%, and average loans and deposits grew roughly 18–19% quarter over quarter.
Wasserman attributed the performance to three factors: strength in core commercial and consumer banking, continued gains from geographic and vertical expansion—including seven new Carolinas branches—and the integration of two partnerships.
Texas-based Veritex, acquired in Q4, was fully converted in January, while Cadence Bank closed on Feb. 1. Early results from Veritex are strong, with deposit growth in that segment up 30% year over year in Q1 2026.
Looking broadly at the industry, Wasserman expressed measured optimism. “Notwithstanding all the environmental factors going on right now, the banking industry looks poised to have a really good year,” he said.
Have a good weekend.
Sheryl Estrada [email protected]
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