Latest news with #VenaCopilot
Business Wire
15-05-2025
- Business
- Business Wire
Vena Sets New Standard in Agentic AI for FP&A With Microsoft Teams Integration
TORONTO--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Vena, the only Complete FP&A platform powered by agentic AI and purpose-built to fully amplify the Microsoft technology ecosystem, today announced the general availability of Vena Copilot for Microsoft Teams. Designed to bring dedicated FP&A expertise and insights into businesses' workflows, this launch marks a bold new era for the Strategic Office of Finance. Unveiled at the company's annual community conference, Excelerate Finance 2025, Vena Copilot for Teams is a giant step forward in agentic AI for FP&A. For the first time, users across the business can access Vena Copilot's industry-first, agentic AI purpose-built for FP&A directly within Teams meetings, chats and channels—putting an FP&A analyst in every conversation, and the power of best-in-class FP&A expertise at the fingertips of every decision maker. From generating instant insights to scenario simulations to collaborative Excel reports, Vena Copilot is transforming how FP&A teams and business leaders plan, decide and drive impact together—without ever having to leave Microsoft Teams. 'The best organizations thrive in all market conditions by simply being better at leveraging the power of data and their people to act decisively. To lead, businesses need connected, intelligent systems that enable real-time collaboration and actionable insights,' said Hunter Madeley, CEO of Vena. 'Vena Copilot for Teams delivers just that—freeing FP&A teams to focus on strategic planning while giving business leaders and budget owners instant access to the kind of insights and expertise they need to make faster, smarter decisions and stay ahead of what's next.' Agentic AI Already Transforming the Office of Finance Built for agentic AI from day one, Vena Copilot now extends its power with Vena Copilot for Teams—bringing intelligent automation to finance professionals and decision makers where they work. With two purpose-built agentic AI tools and seamless orchestration that coordinates multiple capabilities behind the scenes, it's a smarter, faster way to plan, analyze and act—with more innovations on the way. Vena Reporting Agent: Officially launched at Excelerate Finance 2024 following a successful open beta, this powerful tool turns natural language prompts into custom, pre-formatted reports in seconds. It enables finance teams to deliver quick, confident answers to stakeholder questions and dive deeper into analysis through Vena's Ad Hoc Reporting—without the manual lift. Vena Analytics Agent: An industry-first for FP&A, this agentic AI powerhouse was first introduced at Excelerate 2024 and has been helping teams move faster and plan smarter ever since. It runs complex variance and trend analyses, powers scenario simulations and delivers real-time, actionable insights—so finance and business leaders can lead with clarity, speed and impact. Vena Planning Agent: (Roadmap 2025) This new AI agent integrates Vena Copilot right to where you do your planning—in Excel. Through a chat interface, users can perform driver-based planning and predictive forecasting—leveraging AI to deliver highly accurate financial plans informed by historical data and real-world economic trends. Trustworthy AI Purpose-Built for FP&A Powered by Microsoft Azure OpenAI, Vena Copilot is a virtual FP&A partner working seamlessly alongside professionals in both the Vena platform and in Microsoft Teams. Built with enterprise-grade security, it derisks the adoption of agentic AI by protecting customer data and never training public AI models—ensuring confidentiality and control at all times. Vena Copilot transforms conversational prompts into complex FP&A tasks, completed in seconds by a team of purpose-built AI agents. What once took hours is now automated—delivering instant outcomes with full transparency and data integrity. This innovation doesn't just automate—it democratizes FP&A. By removing workflow bottlenecks and making advanced AI accessible to all users, Vena Copilot frees up finance teams to focus on strategic priorities. With Vena Copilot, finance teams become faster, smarter and more agile, while maintaining the highest standards of security and trust. Already Delivering Results: Vena Copilot Is Turning AI Potential Into Real Performance Vena Copilot for Teams is already driving measurable outcomes in the Office of Finance. With agentic AI tools and smart orchestration working behind the scenes, finance teams, like the Association for Institutional Research (AIR), are planning, analyzing, and executing faster and smarter. Charles McCumber, Director of Finance at AIR, adopted Vena Copilot to scale his team's capabilities, allowing him to focus on higher-value, strategic work. He shared the following insights based on his experience with Vena Copilot for Microsoft Teams: 'Copilot in Teams is a natural fit—it's where our tools and processes already live. I can answer stakeholder questions faster, keep meetings on track, and cut time spent on recurring tasks by at least 25%—freeing me up to focus on higher-value work like scenario planning, budgeting and thinking strategically about the future.' Smarter, Faster, More Intuitive: What's New in the Vena Copilot Suite In addition to the launch of Vena Copilot for Teams, Vena's agentic AI suite received a series of powerful enhancements designed to elevate the user experience and accelerate time to value: An updated UI that prioritizes scalability, readability, functionality and ease of use—including intelligent guidance that directs users to the right AI agent based on their prompts. New pre-built prompts customized to each user's data set, giving first-time users an intuitive way to explore and get started. A major expansion of the Vena Copilot prompt bank, with 500 new prompts tailored to real-world FP&A scenarios—based directly on user feedback. Proactive feedback from Vena agents to continuously refine and improve output performance in real time. Innovation That Helps You Plan Better and Achieve More Also announced at Excelerate, our latest wave of innovations brings powerful new capabilities across the Vena platform. From AI-driven insights to deeper integrations and more intuitive user experiences, these updates reflect our ongoing commitment to continuous innovation—so you can keep driving smarter, faster decisions with confidence. They include: Template Studio (Generally Available) Quickly create standardized financial templates with a drag-and-drop builder and a library of pre-designed options like Custom Planning, OPEX and Income Statement templates. Export API (Generally Available) Seamlessly connect Vena's planning platform to your broader data ecosystem, enabling flexible consolidation, visualization and analysis. Enhanced Ad Hoc Features (Generally Available) Use Drill Transactions for detailed transparency and Aggregation for on-demand financial consolidation and streamlined analysis. Enhanced Task Tab (Open Beta) Boost workflow efficiency with advanced search, filtering and a scalable task view to help prioritize and complete work faster. Vena for PowerPoint Improvements Simplify template enrollment by managing it directly within Vena's PowerPoint add-in for a smoother onboarding experience. To learn more about how Vena enables finance teams to plan with confidence and lead with agility, visit About Vena Vena is the only agentic AI-powered FP&A platform purpose-built to harness the full power of the Microsoft technology ecosystem for finance teams everywhere. Vena amplifies Microsoft's world-leading productivity tools, cloud technology and AI innovation to make FP&A, operational planning and adjacent strategic processes more flexible, efficient and intelligent. Thousands of the world's leading companies rely on Vena to power their planning. For more information, visit venasolutions. com.
Business Wire
29-04-2025
- Business
- Business Wire
AI Adoption Surges, but Planning Gaps Persist: Vena's 2025 Industry Report Reveals What's Next for FP&A Teams
TORONTO--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Vena, the only agentic AI-powered FP&A platform purpose-built to fully amplify the Microsoft technology ecosystem, today released its 2025 State of Strategic Finance industry report, revealing that while finance teams are embracing AI and stepping into more strategic roles, most are still held back by fragmented data, manual workflows and uneven adoption of intelligent planning tools. Developed in partnership with BPM Partners and based on a survey of over 200 senior finance professionals across North America, the report captures a profession in transition—optimistic and increasingly influential, but still in the early stages of realizing the full potential of AI-powered, integrated business planning. 'Finance leaders today face growing pressure to provide insights amid volatile markets, rising data volumes and an accelerating business pace to help stakeholders address complex problems,' said Allison Munro, Chief Marketing & Ecosystem Officer at Vena. 'Finance teams are stepping up to the challenge, but the report shows there's still work to be done, especially when it comes to system integration, deeper automation and the full adoption of agentic AI for real-time planning.' Highlights from the 2025 Report Include: AI Gains Ground, but Depth Still Lacking: While adoption is rising, most AI deployments remain limited to data analysis and reporting. Generative and agentic AI, which can surface important insights and answer complex questions from across the business to drive faster, more agile decision making, remains underutilized. Excel's Grip Remains Firm: Despite modern planning tools, 89% of finance teams still depend on Excel. The most cited planning challenge was poor integration between systems, named by 36% of respondents. Finance Is Now a Strategic Driver: 48% of finance teams are deeply embedded in business-wide strategic planning—up from 40% in 2022. Meanwhile, 92% of respondents feel confident in their team's ability to lead the business in its performance strategy in 2025. Headcount Is Stable—But Demand Is Rising: 81% said their team is adequately staffed, yet 72% plan to grow their finance headcount this year. While the exact drivers vary, 21% of respondents cited revising organizational design as a top operational priority, suggesting that how finance leaders structure and deploy talent is a key focus in 2025. 'What stood out most this year is the shift in how finance teams are embracing AI,' said Craig Schiff, President and Lead Analyst at BPM Partners. 'Just a year ago, AI wasn't even on the radar for many teams—now it's a key purchase driver. But as adoption picks up, we're also seeing a widening gap between teams moving forward with meaningful AI initiatives and those still stuck in legacy workflows. Closing that gap will be essential to driving faster, more strategic decisions across the business.' Building on the success of Vena Copilot for FP&A, which has been helping FP&A teams drive faster, more agile planning and strategic decision making since its debut at Excelerate 2024, Vena will be debuting its next wave of game-changing AI innovation in May at Excelerate Finance 2025. The next evolution of AI is here to unlock the power of FP&A across the business. To download the full report, visit About Vena Vena is the only agentic AI-powered FP&A platform purpose-built to harness the full power of the Microsoft technology ecosystem for finance teams everywhere. Vena amplifies Microsoft's world-leading productivity tools, cloud technology and AI innovation to make FP&A, operational planning and adjacent strategic processes more flexible, efficient and intelligent. Thousands of the world's leading companies rely on Vena to power their planning. For more information, visit
