Why Salesforce, PayPal, and Team Car Care leaders call AI agents a game changer for finance
Good morning. We're only in the early stages of exploring the capabilities and applications of AI agents in finance.
That was a key takeaway from Fortune's Emerging CFO event on Thursday, held in partnership with Workday, a sponsor of CFO Daily. My colleague Geoff Colvin and I spoke with Silvio Savarese, EVP and chief scientist at Salesforce AI Research; Jamie Miller, chief financial and operating officer at PayPal; and Matt Castonguay, CFO at Team Car Care, about how their companies are leveraging this technology.
'AI agents can act as workflow and workforce multipliers for humans—like having a fleet of agents at your disposal, 24/7,' Savarese said. He described four key components of an agent: memory (for retaining and using information), a brain (for reasoning and planning), actuators (for executing actions via APIs), and sensors or interfaces (for communicating with the outside world).
In finance, Savarese explained, agents can automate and personalize customer interactions in retail banking, streamline processes like mortgage lending, and improve customer satisfaction with faster approvals. He added that agents will soon be able to communicate with each other, requiring new protocols for secure interactions. As compliance frameworks for agentic AI are still evolving, Savarese advised finance leaders to work with legal and risk teams to develop internal policies aligned with upcoming AI accountability standards.
At PayPal, Miller said the company targets use cases involving high-volume manual work, such as invoice processing and accruals. Agents can harmonize data from multiple formats and automate tasks like travel and expense compliance by auditing receipts and making recommendations. 'As CFOs, we're responsible for financial statements and compliance, so it's critical to have the right checks, balances, and oversight,' Miller said. 'With the right framework, the potential applications are limitless.'
Castonguay shared that Team Car Care, operator and franchisee of the Jiffy Lube brand, is focused on automating high-volume manual tasks such as accounting reconciliations and store support. The company is deploying an agent to help reconcile inventory transactions, a data-intensive process. Processing that much data has been a challenge, he said. 'But it's promising, and we expect to see ROI soon,' he added.
This work requires data-focused accountants who understand both the process and how the agent operates. And it requires all the team members to bring ideas to the table. 'Whether it's in Salesforce, whether it's in Workday, whether it's in a native third party tool—how can we leverage the use cases and the technology?' Castonguay said.
Miller called agentic AI a 'game changer,' noting the massive capital investment from technology firms and private equity. 'We're just at the beginning,' she said. Castonguay agreed, adding that for private equity-backed companies like Team Car Care, managing costs with agentic AI is a top priority.
Have a good weekend. See you on Monday.
Sheryl Estradasheryl.estrada@fortune.com
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
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