How LendingClub (Happen Bank) Plans to Handle Customers Using AI Agents To Seek Out a Loan vs. Search Engines Like Google

During LendingClub’s Q1 earnings call, stock analyst David Scharf asked LendingClub CEO Scott Sanborn how they’re approaching investments in AI-type search vs. traditional. Scharf used this example for context:

Scharf:

…specifically, I was just typing in how do I get a $10,000 personal loan and it just gives you the typical Google paid search listing of whoever shows up, then I said what’s the best $10,000 loan for me and it did the typical NERDWallet shows up. But going forward, when somebody types in, a year from now, what’s the best $15,000 personal loan for me into either Chat or Claude, can you talk us through either some of the risks or opportunities you see in terms of these AI engines making more qualitative assessments and not just traditional search assessments?

Sanborn’s excerpted response:

So it’s a great question. And while it is a buzzword, it is also — that does not take away from the fact that the changes underway are very real, and we are pursuing them, as I mentioned in the prepared remarks, across really all departments and all aspects of the company.

[…]

So inertia is really the thing we’re trying to overcome. So if the agents evolve not only to replace Google search, but potentially to act on behalf of consumers, we think we’re a net beneficiary. But you’re right, it is as a percentage of web traffic right now, it is quite small. That said, it is high intent. And so as that percentage grows, we need to be there for it.

All of the protocols are not established exactly what the — as I’m sure you know, there are many, many, many firms that are engineering themselves around how to optimize for Google’s ever-changing algorithm that same thing will be true for agentic search, and we are going to be going after that the same way we will sort of core organic search and think we’re set to benefit. Right now, that means likely increasing the amount of content we produce to get out there. We’re already in the site. We’re obviously in the places you mentioned. We’re in NerdWallet Best Of, I think, on both sides of our balance sheet. So we’re already there.

But we need to be getting some of our content out on our own to help with that. So we’re pushing behind that throughout this year. That’s definitely on our plan.

LendingClub previously announced that it is rebranding to Happen Bank.