Brex offers ChatGPT-style CFO tools

Dive Brief:

Fintech startup Brex, which provides corporate expense management tools, said Tuesday it is launching new CFO tools powered by technology from OpenAI, provider of the ChatGPT service.
The new features are designed to provide insights on corporate spending and answer critical business questions in real time, according to a statement. They will use the same machine learning and natural language processing technology behind ChatGPT, Brex spokesperson Danielle Bereznak told CFO Dive.
The new tools, which are set to be made available later in 2023 through Brex’s Empower platform, expand on work the company has done with Scale AI during the past year “to automatically parse receipts and invoices,” extracting data to enable automatic policy enforcement, the statement said.

Dive Insight:

The announcement comes as interest in OpenAI’s ChatGPT platform, an AI-driven natural language processing tool, is rapidly increasing, even as some worry about potential privacy and security risks.

Brex, which was launched in 2018, said its Empower platform will provide users with a chat interface that will offer “complex, AI-powered insights.” The natural language AI features will further enhance Brex Empower’s live budget capabilities and will be able to answer a wide range of questions related to utilization on various budgets, insights on spend patterns, vendor trends and more, according to the tech firm.

“Our goal with these new features is to empower CFOs and their teams to make more informed decisions and ultimately drive growth for their companies, and we’re incredibly excited to work with OpenAI and Scale to help bring this vision to life,” Henrique Dubugras, co-founder and co-CEO of Brex, said in the statement.

“The new tools will incorporate data from millions of transactions in order to provide relevant comparables that help benchmark performance and spending, all while maintaining and preserving strict privacy,” the statement said.

A recent survey by cloud services provider Salesforce Inc. found that nearly three out of five executives believe generative AI is a potential game-changing technology, while one-third view it as over-hyped. In addition, two-thirds said they’re prioritizing business use of the technology in the next 18 months, with one-third calling it a top priority.

The technology has also prompted concerns, however. Seven in 10 executives said enterprise use of generative AI means exposing company data to new security risks. A skills gap and integration with the existing tech stack were among other top implementation concerns.