OpenAI to Test Agentic AI Finance Tools In-House With PwC’s Help

OpenAI said early Tuesday that it will partner with PwC LLP to build AI tools that will work autonomously to modernize how companies track revenues and, eventually, how they close their books.

The artificial intelligence startup behind ChatGPT plans to test out the agentic AI capabilities with its own in-house finance staff to prove how the technology—which can complete tasks independently—can re-engineer a critical back-office function, it said in a joint announcement with PwC’s US arm. OpenAI and PwC did not disclose the financial terms of the joint endeavor.

The effort builds on a partnership that dates back to 2023. OpenAI also has partnered with other large professional services providers as it looks to grow its enterprise business.

“The opportunity here is far bigger than efficiency, it’s about giving finance leaders the tools to operate with greater foresight, agility, and strategic impact across the business,” OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar said in a statement.

The two organizations plan to work through each finance function starting with procurement—for example, creating agents that review contracts or make requisition orders for purchases. They’ll eventually address OpenAI’s tax work and closing out the company’s books, a key step in the financial reporting process, said Tyson Cornell, US advisory leader at PwC, also known as PricewaterhouseCoopers.

They plan to roll out updates as they are available.

“This collaboration we’re doing with OpenAI is all around moving past simple use cases in one area to stepping back and looking at all the different functions of finance and what’s possible,” Cornell said.

Real-time reporting will give corporate managers better insights for planning and forecasting, he said.

For PwC, changing finance processes for the agentic era is a top priority, Cornell said. The firm will tap the expertise of hundreds of staff as part of the effort, building on previous test runs with other clients like Lucid Motors, he said.

PwC and its fellow Big Four accounting and advisory firms have invested billions to put the latest generation of artificial intelligence into the hands of their employees, including front-line auditors, and to support their clients as they also adopt the emerging technology.

As part of the effort, PwC has boosted the role of its staff engineers to help attract and retain workers with specialized skills and has also repackaged its managed services offerings to take advantage of the latest technology.