At a Glance

  • Alphabet CFO Anat Ashkenazi said on the company's Q4 earnings call Wednesday that the finance team is using AI agents to process invoices, part of the tech giant's broader strategy to automate daily operations.
  • Ashkenazi said about half of the company's proprietary software code is written by AI agents that support engineering teams. Meanwhile, the finance department is using agentic AI to automate invoice payment and reconciliation processes, and deploying the technology in treasury functions.
  • The finance chief said the internal automation push "extends from engineering teams all the way to small back-office teams, including my own finance team."

In-Depth Analysis

Alphabet is among the big tech companies investing heavily in AI to enhance product competitiveness, while also actively exploring internal use cases. As previously reported, finance chiefs at companies including HP and IBM are cautiously advancing AI pilot projects.

AI agents are designed to perform workplace tasks with minimal human intervention. Gartner analysts noted in a report last year that such agents have the potential to handle "a wide range of complex activities requiring adaptive judgment, often involving cross-application workflows and multi-stakeholder participation." The report added that many activities handled by finance teams fall into this category, including processing documents such as invoices, bank statements, and purchase orders, internal financial reporting and analysis, account reconciliation, fraud detection, and compliance monitoring.

Gartner predicts that by 2028, 33% of enterprise software applications will include agentic AI, and at least 15% of routine business decisions will be made autonomously through the technology—although it remains in its early stages.

Gartner also noted that CFOs face challenges in adopting the technology, such as hype that could "quickly outpace its actual impact," as well as data accuracy and security risks.

"Agentic AI is a major advancement in artificial intelligence, enabling CFOs and their teams to do more with less," the report said. "However, agentic AI also carries risks of errors and waste, requiring CFOs to be well prepared."