Medius, a leading provider of AP Automation and Spend Management solutions, has today revealed its plans for the first AI-powered workmate for the Accounts Payable Automation (APA) industry that delivers a three-pronged innovation strategy in the way invoices are processed.
Code named Medius “Agent”, it is designed to help people that approve invoices by delivering useful information about an invoice such as the approval path, discounting opportunities and links to the last five invoices from the vendor. Pre-defined prompts for popular invoice processing queries deliver shortcuts to intelligent, contextual support that helps users to make quick, confident, and accurate invoice approvals. And if pre-defined prompts don’t suffice, approvers can enter free text questions and Agent has the intelligence to deliver highly accurate and informed responses.
Agent also provides proactive recommendations to administrators of the Medius system about how to optimize settings to improve performance, increasing automation rates and continuous improvement of key system metrics. The conversational interface means users don’t have to interpret this advice then determine how to change those settings in a configuration screen – they can simply ask Agent to alter or apply the recommended settings for them.
Finally, Medius will also deliver Agent capabilities to help meet the needs of suppliers. Today, most organizations require people in the Accounts Payable team to monitor an accounts email inbox or use their individual emails for interactions with suppliers – from in-bound inquiries to onboarding requirements, time-intensive and manual processes that drain productivity and provide a source of phishing and fraud attempts.
Consequently, Medius research finds that one in five finance professionals (19%) feel their job is dominated by monotonous, boring, demotivating tasks with a quarter (24%) saying employees are on the brink of leaving as teams are too busy.
Addressing these problems, Agent can accurately interact with vendors in real-time to provide instant support and address issues and queries. Built on proprietary artificial intelligence learned from $200 billion of annual transactions, it provides AP teams with complete time zone coverage across 365 days a year in all major languages.
To ensure accuracy, explainability, and transparency, all exchanges are viewable through the inbox, relevant employees are copied into exchanges and the technology automatically escalates challenging requests to the most appropriate person.
Supporting organizations to combat fraudulent invoices – which research shows are attempted monthly – the product can accurately identify anomalous and irregular email signatures, email domains, and server address to reduce human error.
Agent can be integrated straight into Medius Accounts Payable working seamlessly with Medius Fraud and Risk Detection. The supplier extension of Agent can be integrated into existing email accounts payable inboxes in a matter of hours and offers immediate value as the AI technology has been trained on the millions of invoices worth $200 billion in transactions that Medius processes annually.
Karim Jouini, Chief Product & Technology Officer at Medius, commented: “Should I approve this invoice? How can I change this configuration setting? What is this payment for? Approvers, administrators, and suppliers are sick of the time it takes to process invoices or to receive responses to simple queries. Using AI as the first responder, AP teams can instead focus on high value work and be brought in on the most challenging of requests, all while reducing the risk of fraud. For vendors, the technology means quick and accurate answers, and less time chasing emails or dealing with frustrating supplier portals. For our customers, the technology means time saved, and a highly secure AP process.”
Agent is the third AI solution in the Medius family. Medius customers can get 24/7 support via an AI chatbot which was deployed earlier this year. Expensya AI technology, acquired by Medius in 2023, answers employee queries about expense policy compliance. Early users of this technology have reported an 80% decrease in policy clarification requests from employees.
“AI innovation runs through the heart of Medius so I’m proud to deliver another effective and easily implemented technology for ambitious customers, both existing and new. The team of technologists at Medius amaze me with their ingenuity and determination to deliver products that push boundaries.”
The business is inviting innovative customers to apply for the early beta version of Agent ahead of the launch in 2024.
