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My inbox has changed.
A year ago, many of the conversations I had with customers centered around business processes and related product capabilities: how to streamline a workflow, improve efficiency, or solve a specific operational challenge.
Today, those conversations look different.
Customers are reaching out directly to ask about AI. Not just what AI can do, but what it means for their teams, their businesses, and their own careers.
The questions I hear most often are surprisingly consistent:
- How do I create an AI-first org that helps us succeed?
- How do I fundamentally rebuild my finance operations with AI?
- What does the AI shift mean for my own career in finance?
- How will Tipalti’s AI solutions help my business run and scale more efficiently?
The reality is that we’ve moved beyond experimentation. In a business environment defined by constant uncertainty, an AI-first approach is no longer a future ambition; it’s quickly becoming a critical element of how companies operate, scale, and compete.
One of our customers put it perfectly: “It’s not your fault if your plan is not 100% accurate, but it is your fault if you do not have a plan for AI.”
That mindset captures where we’re at today.
Key Takeaways
- Tipalti’s president, Rob Israch, says customer conversations have shifted from asking about workflows to asking about AI strategy, career impact, and building AI-first organizations.
- Finance is one of the most important proving grounds for AI because it’s high-volume, data-heavy, and governed by strict rules and controls.
- Finance teams can’t wait for AI transformation to happen to them; they need to actively decide what gets automated and shape the future of the function themselves.
The AI Conversation Has Moved from “What If” to “What Now”
The first wave of AI adoption was about exploration. Companies were testing tools, running pilots, and trying to understand where AI might fit. Now, that’s changed. Companies are deploying AI at scale because doing nothing has become a competitive disadvantage.
Today’s market is constantly changing. Customers expect more. Teams are being asked to deliver faster with fewer resources.
Our own research reflects this shift. AI was identified as the most critical investment priority among finance professionals surveyed, and 61% said they can already quantify the ROI AI is creating in their workflows.
But the opportunity is not simply automating existing processes; it’s rethinking how work gets done entirely. That means using AI to redesign workflows, remove unnecessary complexity, and enable finance teams to operate faster with greater confidence.
I hear this sentiment from customers all the time. The goal isn’t to replace yesterday’s processes. It’s to build better ones.
We expect the biggest impact to come from modernizing finance operations: expanding AI-driven automation, simplifying the balance sheet, and tightening payment governance.
Lisa, Finance Director, European Family Office
Why Finance Is a Proving Ground for AI Transformation
Finance has always been where business strategy meets operational reality. That’s exactly why the function itself is one of the most important proving grounds for AI adoption.
Finance is high-volume. It’s data-heavy. It’s governed by rules and controls. The work requires accuracy, consistency, and accountability. If AI can succeed in finance, it can succeed almost anywhere.
But finance teams are still facing a significant challenge: they’re being asked to stay lean while spending too much time on manual work. Our research found that 56% of AP systems cannot scale without major upgrades, and finance teams cannot solve a systems problem simply by adding more people.
Today, those teams are losing roughly 11 hours each week to manual AP tasks, the equivalent of nearly 72 workdays per year. At the same time, 74% of finance professionals say they’re being pulled into more strategic responsibilities while still managing significant operational workloads.
That’s not sustainable.
I’ve been told versions of this same story from customers across industries. The common thread is that they’re now viewing AI as a way to help their teams spend less time managing finance operations and more time helping the business grow.
The days of scaling every acquisition by adding headcount are over. Our future is using AI and automation to scale AP and accounting while keeping teams lean—so finance becomes a strategic growth engine, not a manual processing center.
Alex Horton, Controller, Centerfield
AI Is Reshaping the Traditional Finance Career
One of the most personal questions customers ask me is: “What does AI mean for my career?”
My answer is that AI creates an opportunity for finance leaders to redefine their role. The next generation of finance professionals will spend less time overseeing people performing repetitive tasks and more time overseeing AI systems that execute them.
That does not reduce the importance of human expertise. It increases it. The value of finance has never been just processing transactions. It has always been judgment, context, accountability, and the ability to guide the business through uncertainty. Ultimately, AI gives teams more capacity to focus on those areas.
The data shows this is already happening. Regular AI users are seeing an immediate impact on their day-to-day value, with 98% reporting improvements in work quality and 97% reporting better decision-making.
This perspective is consistent with many of our customers. They’re not worried about becoming less valuable. They’re excited about spending less time on repetitive tasks and more time focusing on the work only humans can do.
AI isn’t about replacing finance teams—it’s about elevating them. When we take repetitive work off our plates, our people move from data entry to decision-making.
David Metz, EVP of Finance, Elite Staffing
You Are the Future of AI in Finance
The most interesting thing about these conversations is that our customers are no longer asking whether they should adopt AI. They’re asking what comes next:
- How do we make AI part of our day-to-day operations, not just another initiative?
- Which finance processes should we rethink first, second, and third?
- How do we help our teams, and ourselves, grow alongside AI?
- How can we leverage Tipalti as a partner to scale smarter and faster?
Today’s finance teams can’t wait for the future to happen to them. They need to actively shape it by deciding what should be automated, where human judgment matters most, and how AI can create better experiences all around.
We’ve all talked about how finance is transitioning from a back-office function to a strategic one that guides and drives the business forward. That’s what excites me most about where we’re headed. AI and automation will help make this vision a reality, and that reality is coming soon.
For me, it’s not just about building AI into our products to improve our customer experience. It’s about learning alongside our customers, sharing what we discover, and helping them navigate this transformation.
Being AI-first isn’t a one-time technology project—it’s a continuous practice, and the companies that embrace it together will define the future of our industry.
