“What sets this collaboration apart is its focus on building in the real world, not just designing in theory. For example, PwC and OpenAI are building a procurement agent inside the OpenAI finance organisation, and are applying those learnings to additional agents across core finance workflows.”

OpenAI said it draws its knowledge from its own implementation of AI into its finance organisation, supporting investor relations, tax, reporting, treasury, corporate development and contract review workflows, and it now wants to bring these processes to CFO offices.

“In practice, that means helping finance teams automate repeatable work, connect context across systems, and support better decisions with clear governance and human oversight. Agents can help monitor payments and exceptions, review contracts or invoices against policy, update forecasts as business conditions change, prepare reporting materials, and surface risks before month-end or quarter-end close,” the company said.

OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Codex products are at the forefront of the automation processes, with the company saying that the latter can help teams build and adapt tools for workflow implementation. It also said its Workspace Agents can make the workflows repeatable for teams using existing tools. Skills and Connectors assist agents in following processes approved by the team.

“PwC brings the finance transformation, controls, and implementation expertise to help move these workflows from prototype to production in real enterprise environments,” OpenAI said.

“As agentic workflows scale, CFOs will also need visibility into AI usage, token consumption, and projected spend, so finance teams can govern adoption the same way they manage other enterprise operating costs.”

PwC US advisory leader Tyson Cornell said the sector is at a turning point where prioritising decision-focused operations over blank efficiency is key.

“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,” Cornell said.

AI giants are placing a focus on the finance sector

OpenAI’s latest partnership comes just before rival AI firm Anthropic announced 10 new agentic tools for financial services.

Just days ago, the company said it was launching 10 “ready-to-run” agent templates that deal with “the most time-consuming work in financial services,” such as “building pitchbooks, screening KYC files, and closing the books at month-end”.

The agentic templates are designed to run as plugins on its flagship AI, Claude, specifically in Claude Code and Claude Cowork, as well as cookbook within Claude Managed Agents. Either way, Anthropic said the user stays in the loop and is able to observe the work of the AI before it is approved and implemented.