How agentic AI is changing finance
Find out how Pleo syncs to Europe’s most used finance tools in real-time, letting you scale without complexity.
AI promised to transform finance. Instead, it’s mostly helped people work faster by summarising reports, analysing data, and answering questions. While that’s extremely useful, it’s not exactly transformational. AI relies on people driving the process, leaving finance teams more productive, but still drowning in manual execution.
Until now.
Agentic AI changes the equation. Rather than waiting for prompts and acting as an assistant, agentic AI can execute routine tasks autonomously, with people overseeing the process when necessary. And that means finance leaders and their teams are finally free to work on strategy, not admin. That might sound great, but there is a caveat. Your agentic AI needs to understand European finance complexity as a foundation, not a feature.
Here’s how agentic AI is changing how finance works, plus the new AI agents Pleo is launching.
Why traditional AI hasn’t transformed finance
Finance teams have embraced AI, but there’s still a gap between enthusiasm and day-to-day adoption. New research from Pleo shows that while 78% of finance decision-makers and finance professionals think their future depends on a deep understanding and use of AI*, 68% say AI skills, training, and confidence are severely lagging*.
Part of the problem is that today’s AI still needs people to drive the process. Someone has to ask the question, review the response, decide on an action, and then complete the work. While AI might speed up the process, it hasn’t fundamentally changed how finance operates.
That means many finance leaders are still tied up with the administrative burden of managing AI, rather than focusing on strategy. But with agentic AI, that’s changing.
From answering prompts to taking action
Agentic AI doesn’t rely on human prompts or step-by-step instructions. Instead, it can make autonomous decisions and then take action.
Imagine an employee pays for a conference ticket. Instead of waiting for them to upload a receipt and submit it for approval, an AI agent can automatically find the receipt in their inbox, categorise the transaction, check it against the company’s expenses policy, and submit it for approval. Finance teams only need to step in if something falls outside the rules.
The same principle applies across all areas of finance. AI agents can reconcile accounts, monitor cash flow, process invoices and flag exceptions. That leaves finance teams free to focus on oversight and strategic direction, not never-ending manual execution.
This represents a shift from workflow to workforce. Rather than simply helping people complete tasks faster, agentic AI becomes an extension of the workforce, handling the routine administrative work that slows finance teams down.
Keeping humans in the loop
Despite the growing potential of agentic AI, this isn’t about replacing finance professionals. As Marija Nakevska, Chief Product and Technology Officer at Pleo, explained: “Pleo’s vision for the future of finance is specialised AI agents that shift finance teams from execution to supervision.”
In practice, AI handles the repetitive work, while finance leaders set policies, review exceptions and make strategic decisions.
Rather than replace finance leaders, agentic AI aims to reduce their administrative burden so they can actually focus on strategy, not micromanagement. “High-level financial strategy will always be something best suited to the experts, and while agentic models can enrich their insights and actions, the responsibility for setting direction will remain with the people using them,” added Marija.
The challenges of agentic AI in Europe
Getting agentic AI right is difficult in Europe. That’s because it needs to understand sixteen markets, multiple currencies, and VAT rules that vary between countries. At the same time, regulatory obligations mean that every single automated financial action needs a clear audit trail.
That’s why agentic AI for this region needs to understand European complexity from the ground up, not as an afterthought.
At Pleo, we understand this complexity because we’ve been working inside it for a decade. We’ve built specialised AI agents that automate routine tasks while remaining compliant. Alongside our live Policy Agent, we’re expanding our agentic AI capabilities with new tools.
Our Pleo-provided agent works across platforms like Slack, WhatsApp, Microsoft Teams, and SMS, proactively finding receipts, notifying teams when budget thresholds are crossed, and kicking off month-end close.
Our MCP interface will allow any AI agent, including Claude, ChatGPT, and Microsoft Copilot, to connect directly to Pleo and then take action. Finance teams can query spend, process expenses, and run reports all from the tools they’re already using.
Agentic AI can’t replace finance leaders, but it can fundamentally change how they work. By removing the manual tasks that slow finance teams down, leaders spend less time micromanaging the busywork and more time shaping strategy.
To discover more about AI in the EU, download Pleo’s ‘Europe’s AI spending surge’ report
*This research is taken from a forthcoming report from Pleo, launching in September 2026. The survey was conducted by Sapio Research in April 2026, among finance decision-makers and finance professionals in organisations with 51 to 1,000 employees in Germany, Spain and the UK.
