Business First Bancshares, Inc.

On February 17, 2026, we announced a strategic partnership with Covecta, to deploy agentic AI across the bank's day to day workflows. The collaboration focuses on streamlining and automating repeatable, policy-driven activities across core deposit and loan operational processes, reducing manual effort and operational friction so that teams can devote more time towards higher value-adding work including analysis, exception handling and customer engagement.

On February 17, 2026, we announced a strategic partnership with Covecta, to deploy agentic AI across the bank's day to day workflows. The collaboration focuses on streamlining and automating repeatable, policy-driven activities across core deposit and loans operational processes, reducing manual effort and operational friction so that teams can devote more time towards higher value-adding work including analysis, exception handling and customer engagement.

“It was a busy and productive start of the year for b1BANK,” said Jude Melville, chairman, president, and CEO of Business First. “Quantitatively, we continued generating consistent profitability, increased our capital ratios and strengthened our liquidity positioning. Qualitatively, we added a large number of strong teammates through consummation of the Progressive Bank acquisition, the addition of a number of seasoned, respected bankers in Houston, and our partnership with Covecta, with whom we are working on building out Agentic AI capabilities. I’m also proud of our team’s self-managed subordinated-debt issuance through our network of community bank partners. All these deepening partnerships bode well for the continued building of shareholder value over the course of 2026.”

• New Technology Partnership. On February 17, 2026, b1BANK and Covecta announced a strategic partnership to deploy agentic AI across the bank’s day to day workflows. The collaboration focuses on streamlining and automating repeatable, policy-driven activities across core deposit and loan operational processes, reducing manual effort and operational friction so that teams can devote more time towards higher value-adding work including analysis, exception handling and customer engagement.

It is difficult or impossible to defend against every risk being posed by changing technologies, as well as criminals intent on committing cyber-crime. Controls employed by our information technology department and our other employees and vendors could prove inadequate. In the last few years, the number of cyber incidents has drastically increased. The sophistication of these cyber incidents has also increased, and is expected to increase further, as cyber-criminals utilize artificial intelligence and related emerging technologies. Increasing sophistication of cyber-criminals and terrorists make keeping up with new threats difficult and could result in a breach. We could also experience a breach due to intentional or negligent conduct on the part of employees or other internal sources, software bugs or other technical malfunctions, or other causes. As a result of any of these threats, our customer accounts may become vulnerable to account takeover schemes or cyber-fraud. Our systems and those of our third party vendors may also become vulnerable to damage or disruption due to circumstances beyond our or their control, such as from catastrophic events, power anomalies or outages, natural disasters, network failures, and viruses and malware. A breach of our security that results in unauthorized access to our data could expose us to a disruption or challenges relating to our daily operations as well as to data loss, litigation, damages, fines and penalties, significant increases in compliance costs, and reputational damage, any of which could have an adverse effect on our business, results of operations, financial condition, and future prospects.

On October 30, 2023, the current Presidential Administration issued an Executive Order on the Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence, emphasizing the need for transparency, accountability and fairness in the secure development and use of artificial intelligence (“AI”). The order seeks to address AI risks by providing eight guiding principles and priorities, including the development of standards, tools, and tests to help ensure AI systems are safe, secure, and trustworthy and the development of an advanced cybersecurity program to develop tools to identify and address vulnerabilities in critical software.