Founded in 1841 to facilitate trade during America's westward expansion, the firm replaced local, informal trust with a standardized system of credit reporting. Those early records, which included observations from Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, Grover Cleveland, and William McKinley, are currently preserved at Harvard Business School. The evolution from these manual ledgers to the 1963 introduction of the D-U-N-S Number transformed how corporations manage risk and identity across borders.

CEO Stephen Tulenko notes that while the fundamental need to verify business partners remains constant, the primary users of that data have shifted from human lenders to algorithmic agents. The company now integrates its D&B Commercial Graph with major platforms including OpenAI, Google Cloud, Microsoft 365 Copilot, and Salesforce. By anchoring these AI workflows in verified corporate identities, the organization maintains its original mission of enabling commerce to scale despite the increasing complexity of the digital economy.