Big banks are drawing hard lines around AI agents, the software tools that can act for a customer. JPMorgan and Charles Schwab have barred outside agents from moving customer money. Schwab CE
Big banks are drawing hard lines around AI agents, the software tools that can act for a customer. JPMorgan and Charles Schwab have barred outside agents from moving customer money. Schwab CEO Rick Wurster said on the latest earnings call that the company is blocking unauthorized agents that try to log in on behalf of clients. Meanwhile, Visa and Mastercard are building the infrastructure to allow agentic purchases.
Huntington National Bank is taking a middle path. Speaking with TheStreet Roundtable at Money20/20 in Las Vegas, Vijay Konduru, the bank's head of innovation and AI products, said Huntington is “absolutely looking at digital assets” and how they intersect with agentic products and workflows.
One note on wording: a Sept. 29 order told federal agencies to say "Super Intelligence," or SI, instead of "artificial intelligence." Researchers have long used the term for AI that surpasses human ability.
Huntington announced The 1866 Studio on Oct. 19, an AI-powered operating system for small business owners built on Google Cloud’s Gemini platform. Its AI agents help owners start a business, build marketing campaigns and get ready for a loan. Early-access sign-up began Oct. 19, and the base level is open to any small business owner, not just Huntington customers.
Konduru said the guardrails come first.
“Trust is the number one currency of banking,” he said. “One of the critical things we’re ensuring is that the humans are going to be in the loop at all times.”
He argued not every agentic workflow needs to be autonomous, especially as the consequences of a rogue agent grow. In practice, the owner checks what the AI produces and approves decisions before they happen.
Huntington, founded in 1866 and based in Columbus, Ohio, is building the software on one rule: the AI does the work and the owner approves it.
That puts the bank between lenders shutting agents out and payment networks racing to let them transact. Money20/20’s own executive told TheStreet Roundtable that identity is the key unsolved problem before agents can be trusted to move money autonomously.
Stablecoins are digital tokens designed to hold a steady value, usually one U.S. dollar, and they can move money around the clock. Konduru declined to share specifics but said the draw is practical.
“I think it’s more the promise of what stablecoins can do from a money movement perspective,” he said.
That is a shift from July 2025, when CEO Steve Steinour told Bloomberg he wasn’t aware of any significant stablecoin demand from consumers or businesses. The GENIUS Act, which created a federal stablecoin framework, had been signed into law on July 18, 2025, days before that interview.
Mark Sheehan now leads Huntington’s digital assets organization, and the bank is also one of the partners behind Open Standard’s OUSD stablecoin, which went live on Sept. 30 with more than 200 partners.
The demand case is still thin. A Cleveland Fed survey from September 2025 found that only 8 of 148 firms in its district, which covers Ohio and parts of Pennsylvania, Kentucky and West Virginia, use or plan to use stablecoins. Just one said it was using them at the time. Firms cited satisfaction with existing payment methods, unfamiliarity and a lack of demand from clients and suppliers.
Konduru’s message is that Huntington will let AI do the work and keep the customer’s approval on it. Whether that approval step eventually settles in stablecoins is the question the bank is now studying.
