Pleo launches AI finance tools amid approval delays

Pleo has launched new Model Context Protocol infrastructure for finance teams alongside research showing UK businesses lose an average of GBP £231,000 for each missed opportunity linked to slow finance approvals.

A survey of 1,000 UK finance decision-makers at medium-sized businesses found that delayed and ineffective approvals are weighing on growth and productivity. More than half said they spend more time policing spend than shaping strategy, while 42% said finance teams are viewed internally as blockers rather than enablers.

Across six routine activities, including reconciliation, reporting, approvals and correcting out-of-policy spend, UK finance teams spend an average of 25 hours a week on administrative work. The findings suggest broader pressure on finance departments as companies add more digital tools while still relying on manual oversight.

The average financial hit from a missed opportunity was higher in the UK than in other markets covered by the research. In Germany, the figure was GBP £179,108, and in Spain it was GBP £109,074.

AI pressure

The research also suggests strong interest in artificial intelligence within finance, but uneven implementation. More than eight in 10 British finance professionals said they were open to using AI instead of human oversight in processes such as spend and expense management.

That willingness has not yet translated into smooth adoption. Nearly half (49%) said they struggle more with AI management than AI adoption, while 84% said AI upskilling is lagging implementation. Another 65% said skills, training and confidence are far behind where they need to be.

The study also highlights concern about the growing number of tools within finance teams. Some 61% of businesses said they had invested in AI use cases where the return on investment remains unknown, while 47% said over-investment in different systems had already led to what respondents described as "AI sprawl".

Jeppe Rindom, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Pleo, said, "Inefficiency caused by slow spend processes is costing British businesses hundreds of thousands of pounds."

"To tackle this productivity crisis, businesses need to be more strategic with how they apply AI to speed up processes and free up finance professionals to focus on growth. Where results are falling short, they need to look more closely at whether the underlying data is reliable and accessible, and how well the technology is integrated into the way work gets done," he added.

Product launch

Against that backdrop, Pleo has introduced its Model Context Protocol infrastructure, which connects financial data to AI assistants. The system gives finance teams direct access to spend data through tools they already use, including ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude.

The aim is to reduce the need to switch between software products when querying transactions, approving expenses, reconciling accounts and producing reports. The launch comes as finance leaders face pressure to show practical results from AI spending rather than simply adding more software to existing workflows.

"Like many businesses, chasing receipts and proper tagging of expenses is time consuming for us. With the Pleo MCP we can instantly message everyone with outstanding receipts through the Claude and Slack connectors, providing them with a summary of all their outstanding items. When we come to export the receipts to Xero, we can use the MCP to analyse spend and suggest potential mis-tagging or expenses that we need to take a closer look at. Being able to do this at scale in a very short amount of time is a game changer for our analytics and accuracy," said Oliver Hays, Financial Controller at Anthemis.

The wider dataset covered 3,650 finance decision-makers and finance professionals across the UK, Spain, Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands, focusing on organisations with 51 to 1,000 employees. The UK sample formed the basis for the domestic findings on missed opportunities, hours lost and views on AI adoption.

For finance teams, the figures underline a familiar problem: rising expectations to support strategic decisions while still carrying a heavy administrative burden. The research suggests many departments remain caught between the promise of automation and the operational challenge of introducing and managing new AI systems.

Rindom said, "Pleo's new agentic capabilities reflect a broader shift in spend management towards greater efficiency powered by AI. As pioneers of the category, we've always focused on shaping what comes next. Pleo has evolved with our customers, from expense management into a full spend platform supporting larger, more complex businesses. Our newly refreshed brand reflects that evolution and the role finance teams play today: cutting through complexity, exercising judgement and helping businesses make better decisions."