Photo provided to Channel Insider by Sage
At its annual conference, financial management vendor Sage outlined how it has embraced the AI era to bring users more efficient solutions. Channel Insider spoke with product and engineering executives to learn more about how the company is embracing innovative technology while maintaining its core values and mission.
Various enhancements and additions across the portfolio aim to bring users on AI journey
Sage announced several product updates timed to the event, including AI capabilities across the portfolio.
Sage Copilot is now available to users of Sage X3, as is the accounts payable automation that has been widely rolled out across the various offerings Sage provides.
The company also announced announced a “first-of-its-kind” collaboration with CPA.com, the business and technology subsidiary of the American Institute of CPAs (AICPA), to license select AICPA resources to train Sage Copilot. The two organizations say the initiative is designed to explore how Sage Copilot can be enhanced with AICPA professional literature and content to further strengthen accuracy, context, and trust for customers navigating complex financial tasks.
Plus, agentic AI is on the roadmap, executives say, though Sage is taking a measured approach to developing agentic capabilities that address customer needs while also meeting internal and external requirements and expectations for trustworthy deployment.
“The world is moving at a very fast pace, and it can be overwhelming,” said Aravinda Gollapudi, SVP of medium platform and engineering. “We know how hard it is right now for our customers to sort through the minefield of information available to them, but we have built our AI on top of our platform to build value and trust.”
“It just takes time for people to absorb what this technology even is, and then to weigh the risks and consider the opportunities,” said Amaya Souarez, EVP of cloud services and operations.
The Sage Intacct roadmap was also previewed, partially in response to recent research by Edelman suggesting that financial professionals remain skeptic of the benefits AI-enabled solutions can provide. Sage has promised its capabilities will provide the following:
- Close Workspace: A centralized hub within Sage Copilot that tracks customized close tasks, uses analytics to identify bottlenecks, and surfaces suggestions to help teams close faster and with greater accuracy
- Enhanced AP Automation: Extending Sage Intacct’s embedded AI capabilities across the entire accounts payable workflow, from purchasing and bill entry to classification, PO matching, and payments, helping to save hundreds of hours across the AP process
- Continuous Assurance: Upcoming enhancements will transform the close process, orchestrating tasks, automating data entry, and providing real-time insights throughout the reporting cycle
- Cash Flow Prediction & Optimization: Predictive cash forecasting based on customer payment trends and optimized vendor payments to help finance leaders manage cash flow with confidence
- Developer Tools for Sage Copilot: Upcoming enhancements will provide developers with new tools to extend Sage Copilot’s functionality, enabling businesses to build customized AIdriven workflows and integrations that meet their unique needs
“I anticipate a rapid adoption of these capabilities. We’ve already heard excitement from customers and partners about what we have built, and I think over the next six months, the investments, especially around agentic AI, are going to grow very quickly,” Gollapudi said.
AWS partnership, multi-cloud opportunities, and building AI with LLM neutrality
Sage emphasizes throughout its public announcements that its AI is built on top of its own platform and is not dependent on or exclusive to any one model.
Souarez says this is a deliberate effort by Sage to ensure proper data governance and also keep the company’s products open to the best available technology as AI continues to develop rapidly.
“It’s all about flexibility. If we lock into one agreement then we risk losing out on other opportunities for our partners and customers,” said Souarez. “The benefits we see from working with multiple providers outweighs any benefit we could get from focusing on one.”
Sage announced last year it had signed an strategic collaboration agreement (SCA) with AWS, which solidified a relationship between the two companies that had existed for several years. Now, Souarez says, Sage and AWS are focused on collaborating with channel partners.
“We have had a really long-term partnership with AWS for several years now, and we talk with them often about how we can bring our partners into conversations around what solutions we can build that would help them the most,” said Souarez.
Souarez highlights recent enhancements in how partners can leverage agentic AI and Sage Copilot capabilities to augment the work they do in AWS X3 configurations for clients as one way the partnership has led to partner-focused enablement.
Trust and security remain crucial to everything Sage builds
Trust comes up again and again when speaking with Sage executives, and it is clear the product roadmaps take the concept of responsible and secure AI seriously. Moving forward, Sage leadership say they want to see customers embrace AI-enabled outcomes with confidence.
“Our customers need to stay in the driver’s seat on how and when they consent to leveraging AI in their products. We very deliberately roll out these solutions with honesty, transparency, and authenticity so our customers can understand what we’re doing and why,” said Gollapudi. “I don’t believe in ever doing something behind a customer’s back.”
Souarez echoed Gollapudi’s sentiments, emphasizing that the focus on trust doesn’t mean slower development.
“I think it’s part of our responsibility as a business, and we want to make sure our customers and partners can trust what we’re doing,” said Souarez. “We move faster than I think people realize we do, because we are so deliberate about how we build and bring things to market.”
Sage also works closely with a wide network of channel partners to drive success for mutual customers. Read our coverage of how Sage approaches partnership and plans to build on the momentum post-conference.