What is Sage Ai?
Sage Ai is a business intelligence engine which is purpose-built to help finance teams automate processes, save time and uncover insights.
It consists of 2 main parts, Sage Ai, which is the brain that powers various AI features, and Sage Copilot, the interactive AI assistant.
In this article, we’ll explore Sage Ai in more detail and how it’s different to other AI tools like ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot.
What Makes Sage Ai Different?
Rather than integrating AI tools from 3rd parties into their platforms, Sage has developed their own AI engine tailored to the needs of real finance users. This means that everything is built with finance in mind and considers what matters to you most.
“The really good news for all of our customers is that Sage is run by someone who thinks like you. I’ve been an accountant, I’ve been a CFO, and I’m a numbers man at heart.” – Steve Hare, CEO at Sage.
Their approach sets Sage Ai apart from the rest:
Protecting Your Data
Sage understands that security, privacy and compliance are paramount for finance teams. That’s why they prioritise trust and security above everything else, and their AI innovation is no exception.
How Sage Ai uses and protects your data:
- Applying internationally recognised security methods, e.g. data encryption
- Using independent assessments to test security and identify improvements
- Ensuring compliance with the latest data protection regulations
- Always being transparent about how data is used and the choices you have
- Only using identifiable data to train your own AI, not sharing it externally
The AI Trust Label signifies that Sage is setting a new standard for responsible, transparent and reliable AI. They’re achieving this through 3 key areas: global regulation, customer data usage and system monitoring.
In practice, this means you get robust AI that has been responsibly built and rigorously tested by real users, not just rushed out to keep up with competitors.
Read about Sage’s AI ethics and data principles here.
Deep Capabilities
Sage AI doesn’t just pull information from the internet or other AI sources; it uses real insights from your data and information relevant to your Sage product to ensure accurate results.
Current features include:
- AP Agent in AP automation: Creates draft invoices based on supplier invoices and matches them to purchasing transactions.
- Time Agent in Sage Intelligent Time: Uses calendar, email and app activity to automatically populate timesheet entries.
- Assurance Agent: Uses historical patterns to flag unusual journal entries in your GL and potential mistakes for your review.
- Sage Copilot:
- Close Assistant: Lists an overview of your close progress, with links directly to outstanding tasks.
- Search Help: Crawls Sage’s help files to find answers to product and procedure-related questions.
Plus, more features are currently being tested, such as the Finance Intelligence Agent, which searches through your data to find answers to analytical questions and Close Analytics which provides more detailed insights into how your close progresses.
Sage’s AI Commitments
Sage has 5 core commitments which illustrate their approach to AI:
- You have full control to check, accept, change or reject all results
- You’ll get reliable results that you can have confidence in
- You get clear explanations and sources to verify responses
- Ethical practices and minimising risk are always priority
- You can expect easy to use Ai and access to human support
For users, these commitments mean you can have confidence that Sage Ai is reliable and safe to use in your business.
Also, by signing the Pledge for Trustworthy AI in the World of Work, Sage pledge to develop their AI products responsibly, with fairness and inclusion.
Read the full commitments here.
Decades of Expertise
After over 43 years of working with small to medium businesses, Sage has a strong grasp of the day-to-day challenges faced in the finance function.
To combat these challenges, they have been developing, testing and learning from their own AI for many years. With technologies such as anomaly detection and invoice classification working behind the scenes in their products.
Combining expertise in both areas, they’re now harnessing the latest technologies to empower businesses with more sophisticated AI agents and assistants.
Thanks to this wealth of experience, the level of financial expertise behind Sage Ai is unlike anything you’ll find elsewhere.
Authentic Intelligence
Sage approaches their AI development with an ‘Authentic Intelligence’ philosophy, with ethical, human-first Ai at its core.
That means AI that is:
- Designed to help people do their jobs, not replace them
- Safe to use, with robust security and infrastructure
- Focussed on solving real challenges SMBs face
- Easy to use, with clear sources and traceability
- Not created for the sake of keeping up with hype
Find out more about Authentic Intelligence here.
“Authentic Intelligence isn’t just how we do AI at Sage. It’s how we honour 43 years of partnership with the people who power our economy.” – Steve Hare, CEO at Sage
How to Get Sage Ai
The Ai features are gradually being rolled out to groups of Sage users with each release. If you’re an existing Sage customer and you need help with accessing Sage Copilot or have any other questions, contact your Account Manager.
To see a couple of the Sage Ai features in action, watch our recent webinar, ‘Sage Intacct AI Features – The Latest Admin-Busting Tools’.
New to Sage? To discuss Sage Ai for your business, complete the enquiry form and a member of our team will be in touch to assist you.
