PwC and OpenAI have announced an expanded collaboration to develop the first "AI native" finance function at an enterprise scale. By combining agentic AI with human supervision, the partnership aims to move beyond simple task automation toward a model where AI agents execute complex financial work. The initiative focuses on building practical, real-world solutions, starting with a procurement agent within OpenAI's own finance organization. This hands-on approach is designed to refine AI capabilities in planning, forecasting, and reporting before scaling them to global enterprise clients.
PwC and OpenAI are co-developing AI agents for core finance rhythms, including tax, treasury, and the accounting close.
The collaboration features a "real-world" testing model, starting with a procurement agent inside OpenAI.
Finance professionals will shift from executing processes to supervising and governing AI agents.
Tools like Codex and MCPs allow agents to connect to enterprise systems with built-in controls.
Key workflows targeted include contract review, risk assessments, and automated accruals.
The model emphasizes "human-governed actions" and continuous improvement of AI outputs.
The shift toward an AI native finance function represents a fundamental change in how financial work is structured. Rather than human teams executing manual reconciliations or reports, work begins with human intent and is executed by AI agents acting across various data environments. This allows for proactive insights and an adaptive operating model that can handle the complexity of modern business environments.
"Finance is at an inflection point, where organizations are moving from process efficiency to intelligent, decision-centric operations," said Tyson Cornell, US Advisory Leader. "Through our collaboration with OpenAI, we're helping clients embed agentic AI into the core fabric of the finance function, enabling more proactive insights, stronger controls, and a more adaptive operating model."
The partnership leverages OpenAI’s native capabilities and PwC’s expertise in risk and transformation to build bespoke applications for targeted workflows. These include autonomous finance operations such as contract reviews and procurement intake guides. By using agentic intelligence, finance leaders can gain greater foresight and agility, moving the department from a back-office function to a real-time strategic partner.
Sarah Friar, CFO at OpenAI, highlighted the strategic value: "I believe we're now entering a moment where the finance function itself gets reimagined to shape decisions in real time. 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."
About PwC
At PwC, we help clients build trust and reinvent so they can turn complexity into a competitive advantage. We're a tech-forward, people-empowered network with more than 364,000 people in 136 countries and 137 territories. Across audit and assurance, tax and legal, deals and consulting we help clients build, accelerate and sustain momentum.
TechIntelPro empowers B2B technology decision-makers with the latest industry trends, deep insights, leadership perspectives and actionable intelligence to drive both organizational and professional milestones—and thrive on the tech pulse.