Finance teams are increasingly called upon to provide rapid analyses to operational managers and executives. To address this pressure, Abacum is evolving its FP&A platform with Ask AI, a feature that enables users to query their financial data directly using artificial intelligence.
Analyses directly accessible to users
With Ask AI, Abacum aims to reduce the time Finance teams spend handling recurring analysis requests. Users with the necessary permissions can now ask questions directly from the spaces and dashboards shared with them.
The feature can respond to requests relating to performance variances, trends and changes in spending. For example, a manager can seek to understand the main factors behind a monthly change or quickly obtain a summary of their cost center.
This approach therefore aims to bring analytical capabilities closer to the teams that use the data on a daily basis, without removing Finance’s role in governing it.
AI integrated into the financial context
One of the features highlighted by Abacum is how the AI operates within the data scope accessible to each user. Responses are therefore linked to the spaces and tables to which the user already has access.
This approach should enable companies to expand the use of AI in their financial processes while maintaining control over the information available to each profile. For Finance teams, it may also reduce ad hoc requests that typically require manual extraction, verification and analysis.
Ask AI also offers several types of analysis. At the space level, users can obtain executive summaries, performance checks and trend analyses. At the table level, the feature can be used to analyze variances, identify contributions to a change or spot certain atypical items.
Towards more autonomous FP&A
This development is part of a broader trend in the FP&A market: making financial data accessible to more users while maintaining a governance framework.
Abacum is therefore positioning artificial intelligence as an analytical layer integrated into the platform, rather than as a separate tool. Teams can ask their own questions and, according to Abacum, integrate the results obtained directly into their workspace.
The challenge is also organizational. When operational managers can obtain certain answers themselves, Finance can devote more time to analysis, planning and supporting strategic decisions.
A new step for FP&A platforms
With Ask AI, Abacum is therefore continuing its evolution towards FP&A that is more connected, collaborative and AI-assisted. The platform aims to bring data, planning, reporting and analysis together in a single environment.
This direction primarily illustrates a gradual transformation in the role of FP&A tools: they are no longer used solely to produce budgets, forecasts or reports, but also seek to enable users to understand more quickly what is happening in the company and why.
For Finance departments, the question will now be how to strike the right balance between user autonomy, analytical speed and data control. It is precisely at this convergence that new AI features in FP&A platforms aim to position themselves.
source: Abacum
