As transaction volumes soar and regulations tighten, finance leaders face a choice: continue battling spreadsheets, or lead a hybrid team of humans and AI. Dive into how agentic AI is redefining payments operations, with the CFO stepping into the role of agent boss.
The back office of payment-heavy enterprises is straining under the weight of modern financial demands.
Transaction volumes are soaring, compliance requirements, especially in the wake of DORA, are more complex than ever, and the traditional tools of finance, most notably spreadsheets, are no longer fit for purpose.
In fact, according to AutoRek’s latest whitepaper, in partnership with Microsoft and Capgemini, “The Future of Payments Operations: Agentic AI and the Rise of Digital Colleagues”, a staggering 90% of organisations still rely on spreadsheets to run core financial operations.
It’s a statistic that captures the tension at the heart of finance today: the mismatch between the speed of payments and the systems processing them.
Yet amid the chaos, a quiet revolution is underway, led by a new class of intelligent systems known as agentic AI.
Despite years of investment in automation, 56% of enterprise executives say their reconciliation processes remain largely manual.
The whitepaper outlines how the increasing diversity of payment types (from instant transfers to e-money) and data formats (like ISO 20022) has overwhelmed legacy reconciliation systems.
These systems struggle with data inconsistencies, duplicate payments, and slow exception handling, creating a costly and compliance-prone environment.
Agentic AI addresses this with reasoning-based automation. Rather than simply executing pre-programmed tasks, these AI agents read messages, assess context, take actions, and escalate only the edge cases that truly require human attention.
In practice, digital colleagues can now handle up to 95% of ledger-to-statement breaks autonomously, freeing finance teams to focus on analysis and decision-making.
This shift is not speculative. According to the report, 82% of executives believe AI agents will become embedded teammates within the next 18 months.
For CFOs, the implications are profound. The introduction of AI-powered reconciliation brings both operational speed and strategic clarity.
Manually intensive tasks—like matching, exception tracking, and report generation—are replaced with real-time, rule-based systems that adapt and learn.
AutoRek’s analysis reveals three core areas of impact:
These changes also offer top-line benefits. Corporates are increasingly willing to pay a premium for automated reconciliation services, with the report noting that automation now ranks among the most valued treasury features.
This signals a broader opportunity for banks and PSPs to monetise modern infrastructure—not just internalise it.
But the technology is only part of the story. As the report highlights, the CFO’s role is shifting—from overseeing finance teams to managing hybrid workforces that include both humans and machines.
In what Microsoft dubs the “agent boss” model, finance leaders become architects of automation: designing roles for AI agents, defining KPIs, and managing workflows between humans and digital colleagues.
Already, 41% of managers expect training AI agents to be part of their remit within five years, with 36% anticipating they’ll manage them directly.
This evolution brings new responsibilities around talent, change management, and governance.
Finance teams will need to reskill, reassign, and rethink processes in order to work in harmony with AI systems—particularly as the line between oversight and execution blurs.
Agentic AI offers more than just automation—it delivers intelligence. For payments leaders grappling with issues in cash forecasting, liquidity, and operational risk, AI-enabled systems can detect breaks before they escalate, optimise resource allocation dynamically, and provide predictive dashboards that surface emerging threats and opportunities.
Consider safeguarding, where upcoming FCA rules will require enhanced monitoring and real-time reconciliation.
The report shows how agentic platforms can manage these new standards—delivering adaptive role-based controls, real-time breach notifications, and historical modelling of safeguarding trends.
Similarly, in scheme reconciliation, many firms today still rely on summary-level data due to processing constraints.
AI agents allow for granular analysis at scale, improving fee calculations and fraud detection—areas long underserved due to data volume challenges.
The urgency is clear. The volume of B2B non-cash transactions is expected to grow 10.8% YoY in 2024, with an 11.4% CAGR through 2028. Payment methods are multiplying, and regulatory scrutiny is intensifying, particularly across Europe and North America.
Meanwhile, the industry faces a capacity gap: 80% of finance employees say they lack the time or energy to meet daily operational demands.
Agentic AI closes that gap—not by replacing people, but by supporting them. It gives teams the capacity they need, the control they’ve lacked, and the strategic agility today’s markets demand.