Ep080: When AI Meets Accounting - How Sage is Transforming Business Software

Amaya Souarez introduced as EVP Cloud Services at Sage

Overview of Sage: offers accounting, finance, HR and payroll tech for small businesses

Company emphasizes human values alongside technology development

Amaya oversees core cloud services and operations across 200+ products

Sage Co-Pilot announced as new AI assistant – helping automate invoicing and cash flow management

Common misconceptions with Generative AI

AI solutions aren’t always solution to every problem

Compares AI hype to previous blockchain enthusiasm

Emphasizes starting with clear use cases before implementation

Difference between task-based and reporting-based use cases

Partnering with AWS to build accounting-specific language models

Different accounting terminology varies by country

Using AWS Bedrock and Lex for a domain-specific language model development

Multiple AI models may be needed for single solution

Customer feedback drives project funding decisions

AI development integrated into regular product roadmaps

Focus on reducing cost per user for AI features

Success story: reducing 20-hour task to 5 minutes

Tracks AI usage costs per customer interaction

Early Gen AI hype caused confusion in the market

Plans to make domain-specific models available via API

Will offer language models on AWS Marketplace

Emphasizes practical AI application over blind implementation