Starling launches agentic AI assistant for business customers

Starling Bank has launched an agentic AI-powered assistant for its business customers, designed to automate routine financial tasks, reduce administration and help SMEs identify potential scams.

The free Starling Assistant is available through the bank’s app and follows the launch of its agentic AI financial assistant for personal banking customers in March 2026.

Unlike a conventional question-and-answer chatbot, the business version can carry out certain banking tasks on a customer’s behalf as well as provide personalised information based on their account.

One feature allows businesses to ring-fence money for tax. A customer can, for example, instruct the assistant to put aside a percentage of the previous month’s earnings for VAT, with the tool calculating the amount from transaction history and transferring it into a dedicated Starling Space.

The assistant has also been designed to help SMEs identify potential invoice fraud. Customers can discuss supplier invoices with the tool, which can highlight warning signs such as changed payment details and recommend steps to verify them. Starling cited UK Finance figures showing that invoice fraud cost businesses more than £41 million in 2025.

A Making Tax Digital Navigator will help sole traders and landlords understand whether they are likely to fall within Making Tax Digital for Income Tax requirements and direct them towards relevant HMRC information.

Later this year, Starling plans to add enhanced receipt analysis, enabling the assistant to extract information from receipts and combine it with transaction data to provide breakdowns of spending on particular jobs or categories.

Harriet Rees, Group Chief Information Officer at Starling, said: “We know that managing finances can be a major drain on time for small businesses.

“Starling Assistant changes this by automating routine tasks and taking the guesswork out of money management.”

Starling also plans to integrate the assistant with its accounting software later this year, allowing businesses to instruct it to create and send invoices to customers.

The bank said it intends to add a new tool to Starling Assistant every week for the remainder of 2026, with customers also able to submit requests for additional functionality.

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