AI Agents

AI Agents for FP&A: The Next Evolution of Strategic Planning

AI agents help FP&A teams streamline planning cycles, reduce manual reporting, and deliver real time insights while working seamlessly with existing systems.

June 10, 2025

AI Agents for FP&A: The Next Evolution of Strategic Planning

The role of FP&A is changing fast. Once focused primarily on reporting and budget management, finance teams are now expected to deliver real-time insights, guide strategy, and help the business navigate constant change. According to Accenture’s 2024 CFO Forward Study, 72% of CFOs view FP&A as a primary source of strategic insight, leaning on these teams for forward-looking guidance rather than just historical reporting.

But while expectations have risen, the infrastructure hasn’t kept up. Most teams are still choosing between slow, manual Excel-based workflows or the implementation of rigid FP&A tools. The latter limits agility and flexibility, while the former lacks any real automation. FP&A teams are either stuck picking one or the other, and in many cases, doing both. Now, there’s a third option available to FP&A teams: AI agents.

AI agents sit on top of your existing systems—ERPs, spreadsheets, planning tools—and streamline the work that slows teams down. Whether you’re operating in Excel or a dedicated FP&A platform, agents enhance what you already use, enabling faster, smarter decision-making while prioritizing flexibility and automation. AI agents are the next evolution for FP&A teams to truly give them the edge in the strategic decision-making they are tasked with.

Infographic titled “The Current State of FP&A” presenting six key statistics. On the left: 81% of finance teams still rely on spreadsheets for FP&A, 57% say budgeting takes 30–90 days, and 63% can’t forecast beyond 6 months. On the right: 21% can’t run scenarios at all, 16% can run scenarios in under one day, and 23% of FP&A professionals are using AI. Sources cited: FP&A Trends Survey 2024, McKinsey, Stratify Technologies, CFO.com.

These numbers reveal a growing disconnect. FP&A teams are expected to move faster, deliver sharper insights, and adapt quickly to changing conditions; however, legacy tools and fragmented systems continue to slow teams down. The gap between strategic goals and day-to-day execution is widening.

According to Gartner, just 15% of FP&A teams operate with a sustainable delivery model—one that scales without overloading the team. As planning windows tighten and expectations grow, hard work alone isn’t enough. Finance teams need systems that support speed and change, without the overhead.

Why Traditional Workflows Break Down

Modern FP&A teams manage a balancing act: tight timelines, shifting inputs, and rising expectations from across the business. Many still spend much of their time on manual work:

Consolidating data from siloed systems
Updating fragile Excel models
Chasing business partners for inputs
Rebuilding scenarios for every new assumption

For others, FP&A platforms offer some structure and automation, but often at the cost of flexibility. These tools still require predefined logic, frequent maintenance, and re-implementations when business questions evolve mid-cycle.

Whether your team relies on Excel or a dedicated planning platform, the core challenges are strikingly similar: too much time spent managing the process, not enough time driving insight.

A majority of teams (57%) say budgeting takes 30 to 90 days, and 63% can't forecast beyond six months. These aren’t edge cases—they reflect a broader system slowdown. But they don’t have to be permanent. AI agents offer a new path forward by sitting on top of your existing tools, eliminating repetitive steps, and making forecasts, scenarios, and variance analysis available in real time—without rebuilding your entire workflow.

The Hidden Cost of Manual Forecasting

Rolling forecasts are gaining traction—49% of companies now use them—but most teams still lack the systems to support them effectively. Without automation, what should be a forward-looking, strategic process turns into a manual cycle of pulling data, updating models, and realigning with stakeholders, only to repeat it again next month.

Even for teams using FP&A platforms, rolling forecasts can be tough to scale. Traditional tools often require setup-heavy configurations, rigid logic, and frequent manual inputs. The challenge isn’t the model—it’s the infrastructure behind it.

AI agents change that by working alongside your existing tools. They automate data inputs, refresh forecasts in real time, and generate outputs the moment new information becomes available. Whether you’re operating in Excel or a planning platform, agents reduce friction and make rolling forecasts faster, smarter, and easier to manage.

That’s the difference between having a forecast on paper—and running with real-time financial intelligence.

How AI Agents Transform FP&A

AI agents are built to enhance, not replace, the tools FP&A teams already use. They connect directly to your budget – whether it lives in the ERP, spreadsheets, or planning platforms—automating the workflows that consume the most time and deliver the least strategic value.

Agents unlock a faster, more flexible layer of automation:

Forecasts refresh automatically using real-time data as soon as you prompt the agent
Scenario modeling runs on demand, adapting instantly to new inputs
Variance explanations are generated with a single request, saving hours of manual investigation
Inputs and assumptions are continuously monitored, with agents flagging anything outdated or incomplete

Unlike traditional tools, agents don’t require a full implementation. There’s no migration, no retraining, and no disruption. They simply sit on top of your existing stack—making it smarter, more responsive, and easier to scale.

At Concourse, we’ve now made the implementation of AI agents for FP&A teams take less than 10 minutes, allowing FP&A team members to get insights faster than ever before.

Instead of repeating the same cycle each month, FP&A teams can stay focused on what matters: delivering insights, not creating reports.

A Third Option: Manual Work, FP&A Tools, and Now Agents

Workflow	Manual	FP&A Tools	AI Agents
Data Input	Manual exports and uploads	Automated but rigid and slow	Real-time, dynamic, live system integration
Forecast Refresh	Updated manually on a fixed schedule	Monthly or quarterly refreshes	Instant, on-demand refresh with live data
Scenario Modeling	Rebuilt from scratch in Excel	Requires setup and configuration	Prompt-driven and adaptive
Variance Analysis	Built manually with pivot tables and formulas	Partially templated	Instantly generated using real-time data
User Interface	Spreadsheets, emails, and shared drives	Centralized dashboards, often complex to use	Natural language interface, ask and get answers
System Integration	Requires manual stitching across tools	Native or custom integrations	Sits on top of ERPs, CRMs, spreadsheets, and tools

AI agents don’t replace your systems—they sit on top of them and work seamlessly with changes.

That's what makes them different. They unlock a new, faster way of working without forcing you to rebuild everything from scratch.

From Reactive to Strategic

The most significant constraint for most FP&A teams isn’t skill—it’s time. High-impact work like business partnering, decision modeling, and scenario analysis often takes a backseat to report building, reconciliations, and formatting.

AI agents give that time back.

According to McKinsey, AI-driven scenario planning can reduce time spent on data prep by up to 65%. Gartner reports that companies with high AI adoption see a 75% reduction in reporting errors.

By reducing low-leverage work, AI agents allow teams to focus on what matters: guiding strategy, surfacing insights, and helping the business move faster with confidence.

Learn more in our blog post: AI Agents in Finance: The Next Generation of Finance Automation

AI Agents in Action: Real Prompts from FP&A Teams

Here are seven real examples of prompts that finance teams are asking AI agents to accelerate planning and decision-making:

"Pull revenue actuals vs. forecast for the past three months, broken out by region." → Instantly identifies performance trends—no dashboard digging required.

"Refresh our rolling forecast with May actuals and show updated projections for Q3 and Q4." → Updates forecasts automatically using the latest ERP data.

"Summarize the key drivers of opex variance for this month vs. budget." → Generates analysis that’s presentation-ready.

"What’s the cash impact if we delay hiring in Sales until August?" → Produces an on-the-fly scenario without model rebuilds.

"Build a forecast summary slide with topline metrics and key assumptions for our board update." → Preps a clean output in minutes, not hours.

"Identify any budget inputs that haven’t been submitted by department leads this cycle." → Highlights bottlenecks in real time.

"List all forecast model assumptions and note any that haven’t been updated in the last 60 days." → Flags outdated assumptions to keep models current.

These aren’t just productivity shortcuts. They’re building blocks for faster, smarter decision-making.

See What AI Agents Can Do for Your FP&A Team

Are you looking to implement AI agents in your FP&A workflow? Check out our implementation playbook for finance teams.

Concourse is building AI agents specifically for corporate finance teams. These agents work alongside FP&A professionals to automate the most manual and time-consuming workflows, helping teams retrieve, analyze, and act on financial data faster than ever before.

If your team is still spending hours collecting and cleaning data, AI agents can help you reclaim that time and focus on what matters most.

Join our waitlist or email us at hello@concourse.co for early access.