Brex offers ChatGPT-style tools

Dive Brief:

Fintech startup Brex, which provides corporate expense management tools, said on Tuesday it’s launching new software tools powered by technology from OpenAI, provider of the ChatGPT service.
The new features are designed to provide insights on corporate spending and meet business needs in real time, according to a statement. They will use the same machine learning and natural language processing technology behind ChatGPT, Brex spokesperson Danielle Bereznak told CFO Dive.
The new tools, which are expected to be available later this year, expand on work Brex has done with Scale AI during the past year “to automatically parse receipts and invoices,” extracting data to enable automatic enforcement of corporate policies on employee spending, the statement said.

Dive Insight:

The announcement comes as interest in OpenAI’s ChatGPT platform, an AI-driven natural language processing tool, is rapidly increasing, even as some worry about potential privacy and security risks.

Brex, which was launched in 2018, said its Empower platform will provide users with a chat interface that will offer “complex, AI-powered insights.” The AI features are expected to enhance Brex’s budget management capabilities and provide insights on employee spending patterns, vendor trends, among other benefits, the firm said.

“Our goal with these new features is to empower CFOs and their teams to make more informed decisions and ultimately drive growth for their companies, ,” Henrique Dubugras, co-founder and co-CEO of Brex, said in the statement.

The tools will use data from millions of transactions to provide information that allows for benchmarking performance and spending, “all while maintaining and preserving strict privacy,” the statement said.

A recent survey by cloud services provider Salesforce noted that nearly three out of five executives believe generative AI is a potential game-changing technology, while one-third view it as over-hyped. In addition, two-thirds said they’re prioritizing business use of the technology in the next 18 months, with one-third calling it a top priority.

The technology has also prompted concerns, however. Seven in 10 executives said enterprise use of generative AI means exposing company data to new security risks. Integration with existing tech stacks was another top implementation concern.