Agentic finance: a no-hype guide

AI agents are coming to finance. The question is whether your controls are ready.

AI agents offer speed and intelligence, but finance requires governance and auditability. This guide helps treasury teams separate hype from opportunity through practical application.

Can AI agents operate within your control environment without creating new risk? This guide provides the framework to answer that question.

A governance-focused framework

This guide provides a practical framework for evaluating AI agents in finance, from cash forecasting to payment monitoring, focused on the essential lens of control and governance.

Why download this guide?

Define guardrails early, clarifying what the AI agent is allowed to do, who is accountable, and how its actions will be reviewed, ensuring governance is designed in from the start.

Understand where agentic finance is useful today

Identify realistic AI opportunities for treasury operations by evaluating them based on data quality, risk level, and required controls, recognizing that not every workflow should be automated.

Know what to do when the agent gets it wrong

Prepare for AI agent failure modes (e.g., mistakes, wrong recommendations) by designing controls to catch issues before they result in audit findings.

Run a pilot your auditors can understand

Use the 90-day pilot framework to not only prove technology works but also to generate evidence that the process is controlled, explainable, and ready for broader use, building trust across stakeholders.

What you will learn

1. Why governance has to come first

Prioritize control and accountability before deployment to mitigate technology risks.

2. What AI agents actually are

Learn the differences between traditional automation and AI agents in a treasury context.

3. How to design trust and control into the process

Embed trust using review cycles, segregation of duties, and robust audit evidence.

4. Which treasury use cases are worth exploring

Identify high-value treasury use cases including cash forecasting and payment monitoring.

5. How to run a 90-day pilot

Execute a structured 90-day pilot to build evidence and verify audit readiness.

6. What to do in the next 30 days

Implement five immediate actions to prepare your governance model for agentic finance.

Make AI work for finance, not the other way around

Agentic finance must earn trust through control and accountability; this guide provides a framework for finance teams to evaluate AI agents with governance from day one.