What AI Agents Are Really Changing for the Finance Function

Over the past few months, “intelligent agents” have been popping up everywhere — digital assistants seamlessly integrating into our everyday tools. This phenomenon is spreading across all business functions (Sales, Marketing, HR, Product), but if there’s one area where the impact could be truly transformative, it’s finance.

And for once, it’s not just another buzzword (at least, this time I actually believe it). It’s becoming tangible, useful, and very promising.

Finance Needs a (Smart) Helping Hand

Let’s be honest: working in a finance team today often feels like surfing a choppy sea of numbers, urgent requests, reports to deliver, models to update, and forecasts to revise… often at the very last minute.

Finance teams still spend way too much time:

· Looking for the right data (in the right file, in the right tab, with the right formula…)

· Answering the same recurring questions (“What if we grow +10% in Germany?”)

· Producing reports that get read for 10 minutes and then forgotten

Meanwhile, there’s less and less time for what truly adds value to the role: understanding, challenging, and anticipating.

This is where intelligent agents come into play.

What is an AI agent, exactly?

It’s a virtual assistant embedded in your work environment that lets you interact with your data as if you were talking to a colleague.

You can ask it questions in plain English — no need to know SQL, dig through a model, or run VLOOKUPs — and it replies, in the right context, with clear insights.

For example:

· “What are the biggest budget variances this quarter?”

· “What scenarios have been modeled for the Europe BU?”

· “Show me the customer churn trend since January”

In short, instead of spending 30 minutes searching, merging, and formatting, you get the answer in seconds. It’s like having a teammate who knows all your models and can query them for you.

A French Unicorn Leading the Way: Pigment

If you haven’t heard of Pigment yet, it’s a planning platform that allows companies to model, simulate, and collaborate around financial and operational data. Recently, they launched the Pigment Agent — a kind of intelligent assistant directly embedded in the platform.

What makes it particularly interesting is that this Agent isn’t a “black box.” It’s connected to the models built in Pigment, which means it always responds based on reliable, structured, and governed data (which remains the foundation of our work).

And most importantly: it understands context. When you ask it for a comparison between two quarters, it knows exactly what that means in your model. When you mention “France revenue,” it knows where to look. This is much more than a chatbot linked to an Excel file.

Why is this a game changer for finance?

Here’s how this type of intelligent agent can transform the day-to-day life of a finance team:

✅ Less time wasted looking for information

You save tons of time accessing the right information. No more searching through five tabs or asking a colleague how a model works.

✅ Faster answers to business stakeholders
When a sales director or the CEO asks a question during a meeting, you can answer live — with a number or a clear visualization.

✅ Easier scenario exploration
The Agent lets you launch simulations or test assumptions (“What if we increased salaries by 5%?”) without having to remodel everything yourself.

✅ Finance that’s more accessible and collaborative
Not everyone is comfortable with modeling tools. The AI agent makes financial data understandable and usable even for non-technical profiles.

Towards Augmented, Not Automated, Finance

No, agents won’t replace controllers, FP&A teams, or CFOs. But they will amplify their impact. Because they automate the repetitive tasks, while leaving all the room for analysis, judgment, and recommendation — which, in my opinion, is where the true value lies.

It’s like moving from a calculator to a spreadsheet, and now from a spreadsheet to augmented intelligence.

In Conclusion

Intelligent agents aren’t a passing trend. They’re a natural evolution in the way we interact with data. And in a field where reactivity, accuracy, and clarity are key, they’re a powerful ally.

We’re only at the beginning of this revolution. It’s not perfect yet, and business adoption is still limited. But it marks a major technological shift — especially for the finance function. We’re about to get a lot more virtual teammates!