Emburse launches AI agent to prepare expense reports

Emburse has introduced an AI agent that automatically prepares employee expense reports within its travel and expense workflows.

The software analyses transactions, receipts and itineraries, then generates a report for the user to review and submit. Emburse says this reduces the average time spent on an expense claim from 30 minutes to under five.

The launch signals a push by the travel and expense software provider beyond conventional automation in back-office finance tasks. Instead of guiding staff through missing fields step by step, the system is designed to compile a report on their behalf and request extra information only when needed.

According to Emburse, the agent can ask users for missing details in natural language, either by text or speech, and then apply those changes automatically within the report.

The system uses transaction data, receipts and travel information to classify expenses, itemise costs and format claims in line with company policy. It also provides an audit trail by showing the rationale behind each decision made during report preparation.

The tool draws on data from Emburse's wider platform, which stores travel and expense transactions and policies. It also uses integrations with airlines, travel providers, marketplaces, travel management companies, corporate cards, financial institutions and payment providers to pull together spending data.

For example, the software can recognise when flights and hotel stays belong to the same trip, determine which local tax rules apply and assess whether a meal should be recharged to a client. The aim is to reduce manual correction work for employees and finance teams.

Based on more than 20 million expense reports processed annually, Emburse estimates the time savings could total around eight million employee hours a year across its customer base. The company says it serves more than 20,000 organisations in 200 countries and territories.

Shift in focus

The product also reflects the wider adoption of AI tools in finance administration, as software suppliers seek to automate repetitive tasks such as coding transactions, checking compliance and preparing claims. Expense management has long been a target because it combines high-volume workflows with structured policy rules and frequent employee frustration.

Paul Nagy, cChief Product Officer at Emburse, said the launch forms part of a broader shift in the company's approach to automation.

"The shift from automation to agentic AI is at the foundation of everything we do at Emburse, and is what makes a touchless expense experience possible today. The goal is no longer to help people fill out their expense reports; it's to take the task completely off their plates. Emburse is ensuring that what was once a manual, time-consuming process is now autonomously handled by an intelligent agent that understands context, makes decisions within the right guardrails, and works on behalf of the user, who just reviews and submits. This is only the beginning of how we will continue to redefine and deliver a truly reimagined experience for customers," Nagy said.

The software also includes policy checks before submission through a related product, Emburse Assurance. This is intended to test each report against company rules before it reaches approvers, reducing the number sent back for correction.

Emburse also said it uses in-region inference for data sovereignty and combines large language models with expense-trained machine learning models to validate and contextualise outputs. The approach is intended to improve accuracy and reduce the risk of unreliable responses in a financial workflow.

Customer reaction

An unnamed finance executive cited by Emburse said the software could change how employees interact with expense reporting.

"I was genuinely impressed by how intuitive and powerful this felt. The vision of a fully autonomous expense experience - with minimal human effort - is exactly what finance teams have been asking for. It has the potential to completely redefine the employee experience while dramatically reducing manual work for finance," said a senior finance executive at a global technology company.

The new experience will be offered as part of Emburse Enterprise Expense, with users able to switch between the AI-led interface and a classic version. Access will roll out in phases.