Payhawk, the London-based expenditure management platform, has introduced a new series of artificial intelligence agents intended to help business financing teams with administrative charges.
Plug the “Office of the AI of the CFO”, the offer is designed to manage tasks that take time such as pursuit of receipts, processing of purchase requests and response to payment requests – functions generally supervised by staff within financial services.
The launch highlights the broader trend in the integration of AI tools in financial operations to improve productivity, although it also raises familiar issues on surveillance, compliance and control.
According to PayhawkIts AI agents are built on the existing infrastructure of the quality company and are governed by the same authorizations and approval workflows already used by customers. This structure, says the company, is what allows agents to take real operational responsibilities without compromising internal controls.
“Financial leaders know that AI will have an impact on their operations, but so far, there has not been a clear and practical path,” said Hristo Borisov, CEO of Payhawk. “We do not only add the features of the AI - we create a new category of specially designed agents that transform financing operations.”
Among the new tools is a Financial controllerDesigned to reduce the manual work to withdraw missing receipts and revision of expenditure documents. It also signals the transactions departing from the policy or the expected standards.
The other tools of the suite include:
- A Supply agentwho guides employees through purchasing requests and approval steps via a conversational interface;
- A Travel agentwhich reserves trips in accordance with policies and captures related expenses;
- And a Payment agentwhich responds to personnel routine payment requests.
While AI integrations have become more common in all business software, Payhawk’s approach aims to give these agents defined in the established funding processes, rather than superimposing AI at the top of existing interfaces.
“Our platform already manages the management of global expenditure thanks to approved payments, established approval workflows, granular expenditure controls and systems integrations – the exact basis necessary for the secure and efficient implementation of AI,” said Boyko Karadzov, CTO of Payhawk.
The announcement follows the publication of Payhawk’s own CFO Tech Gap study, which revealed that 87% of financial managers have confidence in AI to assume part of their responsibilities.
However, industry experts have warned that the successful deployment of IA Finance will depend less on enthusiasm and more on robust internal governance, in particular when managing data sensitive to payments and workflows.
The deployment of the “CFO AI office” comes as financial leaders are looking for more and more tools to release manual tasks teams, although many remain suspicious of automation which could compromise surveillance.
The Payhawk model appears to be focused on the delivery of the AI in tight control frames, a nod to the culture first of compliance which defines modern finance.
Has this article useful?
YesNo
