Dun & Bradstreet

The film traces Dun & Bradstreet’s nearly two-century history through one enduring question: who can you trust in business? Beginning in 1841, when D&B correspondents provided local knowledge about businesses in a rapidly expanding America, the film shows how the company has continuously evolved alongside commerce—from handwritten credit reports and correspondent networks to D-U-N-S Numbers, global business data and, today, AI-powered decision-making.
Through interviews with D&B representatives and access to the company’s historic archives at Harvard Business School, the film explores how reliable business information has remained fundamental to growth, risk management and commercial relationships. The story connects the past to the present, including the remarkable archive of 19th-century credit reports and the discovery of Abraham Lincoln’s record as an R.G. Dun correspondent.

The film then looks at how Dun & Bradstreet supports businesses of all sizes today, helping them identify new prospects, assess risks, access credit, understand suppliers and make more confident decisions. Particular emphasis is placed on the importance of small businesses and the role trusted data plays in enabling them to grow.
As the business world enters the age of AI, the film explores the next chapter of D&B’s evolution: providing trusted company information and context to AI models and agentic systems so they can make faster, more accurate and more reliable business decisions. Ultimately, the film presents Dun & Bradstreet’s history as a story of continuous innovation built around a constant human need—the confidence to know who you are doing business with—and looks toward a future where trusted business information remains essential to global commerce.

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