Brex Debuts AI Expense Management Assistant for Employees

Brex has launched an artificial intelligence-powered assistant to help employees simplify expense management.

The spending platform said Brex Assistant, announced Wednesday (Sept. 20), is part of its larger Brex AI suite, designed to make spend management more accurate and efficient.

According to a news release, the assistant uses artificial intelligence (AI) technology as well as data from “calendar information, organizational context, past expenses, and exclusive integrations,” to automatically populate expense documentation and assign the expense to the appropriate category.

“For example, Brex Assistant knows when an employee is traveling for work based on their calendar,” the release said. “When they book a flight, Brex Assistant automatically assigns the appropriate travel budget, fills out the business memo, and generates the itemized receipt. The expense is fully compliant with the company’s policies, all without any employee effort.”

In addition, the tool can also answer questions workers would typically have for their finance team about expenses, and answer questions about past transactions. (The example the company gives is “What was on my calendar when I expensed this Uber?”)

PYMNTS looked at the role AI can play in the spend management space earlier this year in a conversation with Jamie Anderson, chief revenue officer at U.S.-based global spend optimization firm Emburse.

He said AI could be transformative, assisting firms that have collected years’ worth of data on their platforms to better grasp spending at a more granular level, and establish policies based on a previous year’s spend or forecast future outcomes.

“AI and machine learning [ML] are the next frontier of [spend management] — whether it’s about helping companies build policies, or just getting the insight to make predictions on future spend or savings,” Anderson said.

Last month, Brex debuted an AI-powered accounts payable (AP) solution to its platform, combining enhanced bill pay capabilities and purchase cards.

The company said the tool is meant to give AP teams the controls they require while also giving employees the flexibility they want for business spending.

“The combination of Brex’s bill pay offering and its purchase cards enables companies to control all non-payroll spend, invoiced or otherwise,” Brex Co-founder and Co-CEO Henrique Dubugras said in a news release.

“This is particularly important because procurement accounts for a huge portion of customer spend, and therefore without Brex, even small purchases can take up to a week to get approved, slowing down businesses.”