Money20/20: Why Spendesk Eyes an Agentic Future for Finance
At a time when every fintech seems eager to add AI capabilities to its platform, Spendesk is taking a different approach.
Rather than viewing AI as another feature, the spend management specialist is positioning itself as the infrastructure layer that connects finance teams, business data and AI agents.
The strategy reflects a broader shift taking place across finance.
As organisations experiment with gen AI, finance leaders are increasingly looking beyond productivity gains and towards workflows that combine automation, analysis and decision-making.
Speaking with FinTech Magazine at Money20/20 in Amsterdam, Quentin Vigneau, Chief Product Officer at Spendesk, says the challenge is not whether finance teams will adopt AI, but how far they are willing to trust it.
The connective tissue of finance
Spendesk’s platform already helps businesses manage expenses, invoices, subscriptions and company spending.
However, the company's latest focus is on enabling finance teams to interact with their financial data through AI systems rather than traditional reporting interfaces.
At Money20/20 Europe, Spendesk announced Spendesk AI Connect, built on the Model Context Protocol (MCP), designed to allow finance professionals to query spend data directly through AI assistants such as Claude and other large language model interfaces.
The technology enables finance teams to move from static reports towards conversational access to financial information, the company says.
It also claims spending on AI tools by its customers has increased more than 50-fold since 2022 – showcasing the growing demand for AI-enabled workflows.
Quentin says this development represents a fundamental evolution in how finance software is consumed.
“My belief and thesis, as a product person, is that finance teams live in some kind of a software archipelago where each software is like an island with its own use case and LLMs are like the shipping lanes between those islands,” he explains.
"They are the glue that connects it all together and enables you to multiply value between the various tools you’re using.”
Looking beyond just productivity gains
Like many fintech leaders, Quentin sees AI delivering immediate value through automation and efficiency.
However, he believes the longer-term opportunity lies in helping organisations make better spending decisions.
“We categorise it in Spendesk by ‘work better’ and ‘spend smarter’ categories," he says.
“Work better about how you can be more efficient in your day-to-day process and spend smarter looks at what you already invest in your general activity and how you can get most of this euro or pound and ensure that, thanks to AI, you are making the right decision for your business.”
Despite all the benefits of AI, Quentin is equally aware of the challenges.
While finance teams are increasingly comfortable using AI for research, analysis and reporting, trust remains a critical barrier when it comes to approvals, payments and compliance-sensitive processes.
Quentin is firm in that trust is a defining challenge.
And for Spendesk, the next phase of AI adoption depends on governance as much as innovation.
“This is where technology comes into play,” Quentin says.
He argues that successful AI deployment requires far more than placing a LLM on top of existing systems.
Instead, providers must create robust guardrails, auditability and human oversight to ensure consistency and compliance.
In light of this, Spendesk is now exploring how AI can move beyond reading and analysing spend data towards initiating actions within finance workflows.
Early MCP capabilities focus on retrieval and reporting, while future developments could allow AI agents to support purchasing and payment processes under controlled conditions.
The future of finance operations
As Spendesk expands its AI roadmap, the company is also building on a period of strong business momentum.
Having reached profitability and continued investing in AI-led finance capabilities, it is positioning itself at the centre of what many in the industry describe as the agentic era of finance.
For Quentin, however, technology remains secondary to customer outcomes.
“We are fundamentally here to enable them to do what they want,” he says.
“We are kind of obsessed about our own humility – knowing when we need to act, when we need to provide an interface, the right automation and when actually just to be here to empower.”
And, as finance teams continue their AI journeys, Spendesk is balancing automation, trust and control as its differentiator.
