Tech vendor Docyt adds voice feature to AI-driven accounting tool

Dive Brief:

Finance software vendor Docyt’s accounting automation platform for small- and medium-sized businesses is now equipped with a new voice-driven feature designed to accelerate bookkeeping workflows, the company said in a recent announcement.
The new functionality allows busy accountants to more quickly resolve flagged transactions by leaving voice notes in the Docyt mobile app, reducing the amount of time spent on manual bookkeeping tasks, according to the company. The voice notes are transcribed by the platform with the help of artificial intelligence.
“The promise of this feature is acceleration of the month-end book closing process,” Docyt CEO Sid Saxena said in an interview. “This is just one of the enhancements we’ve launched from an AI perspective, and we’re building a lot of interesting future things.”

Dive Insight:

Santa Clara, California-based Docyt is among software vendors big and small that have been racing to capitalize on recent advancements in AI, with many zeroing in on the corporate finance function as a primary market.

Last month, tech startup Nominal, which is seeking to disrupt the enterprise resource planning sector using AI, announced that it raised $9.2 million in a seed funding round led by Bling Capital and Hyperwise Ventures, with participation from executives at Salesforce, ServiceNow and Intel.

ERP refers to software used by companies to manage key day-to-day business activities, including accounting and procurement. The current ERP landscape is plagued by outdated technologies among other challenges, according to New York-based Nominal, which is primarily focused on mid-market, multi-entity businesses such as holding companies and multinational technology firms as part of its initial go-to-market plans.

Meanwhile, software giant Microsoft has made it a top priority to layer AI across its many offerings. Last summer, the software giant announced that it was incorporating a new set of generative AI capabilities into its ERP platform known as Dynamics 365. In February, it unveiled a corporate finance version of its virtual assistant known as Copilot, which is powered by GenAI.

“By infusing AI across every layer of our tech stack, we are winning new customers and helping drive new benefits and productivity gains,” Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said during a January earnings call.

The vast majority (97%) of business executives plan to invest in GenAI over the next 12 months, with 43% expecting an allocation of $100 million or more, according to the results of a recent survey by KPMG.

But a recent Deloitte survey found that CFOs in particular are approaching the technology with caution as they wrestle with challenges surrounding it. Finance leaders responding to a question about top barriers to GenAI deployment within the finance function cited technical skill gaps, adoption risks, and culture and trust issues as top concerns. When asked what degree of impact GenAI is having on their current finance talent model, 61% of survey respondents indicated either minimal impact or no impact at all.