Why Now Is the Time for Treasury to Embrace AI

AI in treasury has moved well beyond experimentation. As the technology matures, treasury teams have more opportunities to automate manual work, connect their data and free up valuable time for higher-value activities.

In this episode of the Treasury Career Corner, Mike Richards catches up with James Kelly, Co-Founder of Your Treasury, to explore how AI is changing the way treasury teams operate and why now is the time to start embracing it.

Through Your Treasury, James works with treasury teams to solve practical challenges using AI, automation and better use of data, helping them rethink processes that have traditionally required significant amounts of manual work.

A lot can change in 15 months in the world of AI.

Since Mike and James last spoke, treasury teams have moved from asking about potential AI use cases to exploring how the technology can solve real problems. James explains how developments such as AI agents are putting more powerful tools directly into the hands of treasury professionals, without always requiring extensive IT resources.

He shares practical examples of what this looks like, including cash forecasting processes reduced from dozens of hours to just a few hours and a pensions reporting process cut from more than two days to around 30 minutes.

James also discusses why many treasury challenges are ultimately data challenges, where human judgement remains essential, and why treasury professionals need both enthusiasm and carefulness when adopting AI.

What we discuss:

• How AI adoption in treasury has changed over the past 15 months.
• Why AI agents are giving treasurers greater autonomy over end-to-end workflows.
• Why so many treasury challenges ultimately come back to disconnected, inconsistent or poor-quality data.
• How cash forecasting can be redesigned from a heavily manual process into a more automated, data-driven workflow.
• How AI can help treasury teams tackle FX exposures, KYC, account opening and contract monitoring.
• How one pensions reporting process was reduced from more than two days of work to around 30 minutes.
• Why James starts AI training by encouraging treasury professionals to explore the technology before applying it to treasury-specific problems.
• Why enthusiasm for AI needs to be balanced with accuracy, careful review and choosing the right tool for the task.

You can connect with James Kelly on LinkedIn.

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