Field notes on how agentic products talk. Same test every time: Who is the hero? What does the first sentence sell? Is draft vs post visible? These are not reviews. They are first-line audits. Read the arguments first: https://www.timpratt.me/start-here/ Horizontal Agents Salesforce Agentforce A catalog of job-ready agents. The hero is the agent at work.
Positioning Teardowns Read More »
Most agentic AR pages lead with autonomy. Finance leaders underwrite cash, customer relationships, and who owns a miss. This is the rewrite. The product context The product is an agent that works the order-to-cash path: find the right contact, send the reminder, chase the invoice, match the payment, reduce DSO. That work is real. The default
Before → After: Positioning an Agentic AR Product for the Office of the CFO Read More »
A policy surface is the place an operator can see and change the rules the agent has to survive, without opening a prompt or a repo. Amounts. Propose vs post. Who owns the miss. Most agentic finance products skip that object. The rules live in instructions. The demo still clears a clean invoice. If the dual-review
The Policy Has to Live on the Glass Read More »
This site is a positioning house for agentic tools sold into the Office of the CFO. Read it in this order if you build or market those products. Do not start with autonomy. Start with who owns the miss. 1. The four arguments Trust before autonomyFinance buyers reject the agent-as-hero story. Lead with control, then capability.https://www.timpratt.me/trust-before-autonomy/ The
Most agentic AI deals do not die because a rival agent told a better story. They die because the buyer already has a default. Hire another clerk. Keep the RPA bot. Use the ERP screen. Send the pile to shared services. Stand up a chatbot and call it a pilot. If the first conversation never names that
Agentic AI in Finance: What Buyers Compare It To Read More »
Most agentic close products still lead with autonomy. The homepage says the agent can post, reconcile, and finish the close. The demo shows journals moving. The room nods. Then a Controller asks who owns a bad entry, whether the posting can be explained, and whether “faster close” means fewer controls. That is where the story
Agentic Close Positioning: Before and After Read More »
Most agentic AI business cases still treat the same line as the win. We will automate this workflow and reduce headcount. That line is easy to put on a slide. It is easy to defend in a budget meeting. It is also how a lot of finance transformations stall. The hours come out. The people
Budget Savings Are Not Value Creation Read More »
Most agentic AI pitches fail in the same place: not in the demo, but in the handling of CFO agentic AI objections. Finance buyers rarely say “this is unimpressive.” They say something more specific, more cautious, and more revealing. If the response is generic, the deal slows down. If the response shows you understand the
What CFOs Actually Push Back On When Agentic AI Is Pitched Read More »
Most CFOs start agentic AI where visibility is highest. Forecasting. Board reporting. Scenario narratives. The work already gets executive airtime, so it feels like the obvious place to prove that AI belongs in finance. Then the pilot hits messy data, unclear ownership, and a public tolerance for error that is close to zero. Progress stalls. The conclusion
The Back Office is the Beachhead Read More »
Illustrative positioning case based on common patterns in agentic finance products. Not a client case study. Most agentic finance products still lead with autonomy. This before-and-after case on agentic AP positioning shows why that story fails with finance buyers, and what a control-first rewrite looks like. The demo shows invoices moving end-to-end. The narrative promises
Before → After: Positioning an Agentic AP Exception Product for the Office of the CFO Read More »