How AI Empowers Human Common Sense in Finance

AI is often spoken about as replacing human work. Google has started encouraging people to use its Gemini AI to format docs and help write them, Salesforce advertises its Agentforce as being able to “autonomously take action across any business function… like resolving customer cases, qualifying sales leads, and optimizing marketing campaigns” and so on.

At Firmbase, what we’ve seen with our agentic AI platform, built for FP&A teams, is that a focus on AI taking on tasks misses the point. The magic happens in the way that AI agents empower humans to do the things they’ve always wanted to do more of at work, and do them better. 

AI Agents Are Not Like Factory Robots

AI agents are sometimes referred to as “bots” and this is helpful in conveying the smooth automation that’s an inherent part of their use. But it’s also misleading, because AI agents are not like the kinds of robots that automate work in factories and do replace human labor there.

The reason robots replace human labor in factory settings is that there’s nothing intrinsically human about the physical tasks required there. If things need to be moved around, or put together as precisely and efficiently as possible, a robot that is tuned for precision and doesn’t get bored or tired is a better fit for the work. 

The work that AI agents do is not self-contained in this way. Rather than being the goal of the process, the functions AI agents take on are the details in service to a wider goal and part of a broader task. The larger mission requires understanding, intelligence and common sense that is definitely human. 

Handing the repetitive, limited or time-consuming elements of the task over to an agent does the opposite of replacing the human in the mission. On the contrary, it allows people to carry it out in the way they’d always wanted to do.

Finally Able to Work the Way You Wanted 

A recurring theme we hear at Firmbase from the clients using our FP&A platform is that it enables them to expand their role in the ways they’d always wanted. Common factors that are shared include:

• Being able to analyze data at a click of a button
• Creating forecasts and planning new scenarios 10x faster
• Smoothly incorporating data from across the organization as part of FP&A budgeting processes
• Identifying and fixing data, formula and planning errors quickly 
• Having the time, data and relationships to ensure coherent, shared business planning and strategy

AI Agents and the Common Sense Touch

FP&A professionals (and finance teams more generally) usually have a sense of what they need to do their jobs at greater depth, with increased accuracy and efficiency and for greater impact in their organizations. 

These things typically aren’t rocket science, but common sense; needing more data, or more time with other stakeholders, or sending more regular updates, or being able to spend less time crunching data and more time on how to make recommendations relevant and actionable. 

With AI agents taking on the humdrum but necessary nuts and bolts work that underlies the more strategic and impactful activities, FP&A teams can apply those common sense measures at last. It’s inspiring to see that the results appear to be as powerful as FP&A professionals always suspected they might be.