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By Dan Miller, Executive Vice President of the Financials and ERP Division at Sage
For years, finance teams have invested heavily in automation. They built custom integrations, stitched together point solutions, and celebrated incremental gains. Yet most organizations still start the day the same way: manually capturing information, hunting for reports, chasing updates, and validating numbers that take hours of time. Automation solved tasks, not problems. It streamlined steps but never bridged the gap between data and decisions.
That gap isn’t just a finance issue. It’s a broad systems issue – and IT is central to closing it.
In 2026, IT teams will move toward cloud-native, policy-controlled agentic solutions that make continuous accounting and auditable, human-approved actions attainable.
The Inflection Point: From Automation to Orchestration
The industry is at an inflection point. AI is evolving how work is done quickly; from isolated automation into Agentic AI driven action. Agents are embedded and sit inside the work, not beside it. The purpose is to close the gap between data capture and proactive action. These agents drive connected workflows across finance and operations, automating tasks, delivering continuous insights and proactive recommendations, while keeping people and transparency at the center.
Consider the month-end close. Traditionally, finance teams pull data from multiple systems, track tasks in spreadsheets, and discover issues late – sometimes after a management packet is already in review. With AI agents, the close happens continuously. They nudge task owners before deadlines slip, catch errors at entry instead of three steps downstream, and surface clear explanations when numbers move. Leaders review exceptions, make judgment calls, and move on without full confidence in the information they have.
How Embedded Agents Change the Dynamic of Work
When job-centric agents are embedded in workflows, the nature of work changes. They keep processes moving without constant intervention, so routine tasks happen automatically, and people step in only when judgment or review matters. The close shifts from a scramble to meet deadlines to a continuous flow.
CFOs aren’t stitching together forecasts, waiting on updates, or scrambling over last-minute adjustments anymore. Agents blend financial and operational insight in real time – managing projections, flagging issues with options, and keeping the close on track. Leaders don’t wait on data; they act, and they do it with clarity.
The Non-Negotiable Principles
None of this can work without principles that are non-negotiable. Explainability must be the default, with every recommendation showing its logic. Auditability matters, with every action tracing back to a trusted source. Control stays with business leaders. Agents coordinate, compose answers, and act with permission, but accountability remains with people.
Governance is foundational. IT teams must define access controls, enforce auditability, and embed explainability into every agent action, ensuring exceptions are handled securely and efficiently while maintaining compliance across systems.
From Retrieval to Action: Where Value Shows Up
Most organizations don’t lack data – they lack confident insight. They need systems that maintain context across steps, adapt to the specifics of a workflow, and turn “what just happened?” into “what should we do now?”
The leap from retrieval to action is where value shows up: fewer manual steps, earlier detection of issues, faster, clearer recommendations. And when that happens, roles shift. Routine becomes reliable, and judgment moves to the foreground: which risks to accept, which opportunities to pursue, which trade-offs matter now.
What This Means for IT and Finance Leaders
For IT, this shift means creating and maintaining systems that connect agents, enforce security, and scale responsibly. It’s about both enabling automation and governing it. IT sets the trust framework that keeps Agentic AI aligned with business priorities and regulatory requirements.
For finance and operations leaders, it’s about less time chasing reconciliations, more time driving growth. The first step doesn’t require sweeping change. Choose one workflow, add one agent, and ensure every recommendation is explainable while every decision stays with people.
Agentic AI is not about handing over control. It’s about elevating the work finance teams do today. When agents can automate the repetitive, manual tasks, leaders gain the time and clarity to focus on strategy. The payoff is simple: more confidence in decisions, fewer surprises, and momentum that doesn’t stall at the end of a reporting cycle.
The Work Itself Is Changing
The next wave of AI isn’t another dashboard or a smarter chatbot. It’s an orchestration layer inside the work: agents that understand context, maintain continuity, and coordinate steps that used to scatter across inboxes and spreadsheets. Accounting becomes continuous. Decisions arrive with clarity. And the center of gravity shifts back to where it belongs: trusted insight, human judgment, and action at the speed of the business without the repeated manual effort.
Efficiency alone isn’t enough. Businesses need systems that convert information into outcomes consistently, explainably, at the speed of business. That’s what Agentic AI delivers. And that’s why the future of finance isn’t about doing the same work faster – it’s about fundamentally changing the nature of work to be outcome-focused, higher value work.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
As the Executive Vice President of the Financials and ERP Division at Sage, Dan shapes the strategic direction of the company’s offerings to the mid-market. His responsibilities span across crafting business strategies to overseeing product design and delivery. With his extensive background in financial software and a focus on customer needs, Dan drives innovation and delivers solutions that empower small and medium businesses globally.
