The Payments AI Agent is an AI-powered assistant that helps employees and managers get card, spend, and reimbursement tasks done instantly through a simple conversation, without having to involve your Finance Team. You can ask it to request a card or extra funds, check why a transaction declined, follow a reimbursement, review a spend policy, or get a read on cash and company spend, and it handles the task from start to finish.
It works through skills and playbooks: a skill carries out a single task, such as asking for a card, freezing a card, checking an exchange rate, or approving a funds request, while a playbook combines skills into an end-to-end workflow, such as checking that an upcoming payment run is covered or handing over everything tied to a leaver. By explaining the status of transactions and executing fixes to common issues, for example a top-up request for insufficient funds, the Agent replaces back-and-forth emails and support tickets, unblocks employees, and leaves Finance teams free to focus on higher-value work.
Every action happens within existing Payhawk spend policies and approval workflows, keeping processes compliant, consistent, and fully auditable.
If you are unsure exactly what the Payments AI Agent can do for you, you can ask it directly, or see the full list of skills and playbooks it supports.
Common challenges in card management
Everyday spend problems, such as failed transactions, insufficient funds, or policy restrictions, disrupt employees and drain admin and Finance team resources.
Employees lack visibility into the reasons for these issues and rely on manual admin intervention to resolve them. Administrators, meanwhile, are caught in a reactive cycle of approvals, troubleshooting, and back-and-forth communication. All this leads to wasted time, frustration on both sides, and Finance teams acting like a support team.
The Payments AI Agent lets employees self-serve without involving your Finance Team. It answers questions and carries out tasks, such as requesting funds, freezing a card, checking a spend policy, or following a reimbursement, so that employees aren't unnecessarily slowed down, and the Finance Team can focus on more important work.
How the Payments AI Agent works for Finance teams
By using the Payments AI Agent, Finance teams and managers simplify card management and get the answers that used to need a report or a request to another team, while enhancing overall efficiency with:
Fewer interruptions, as employees get instant explanations and suggested fixes for failed card transactions and finance only handles true exceptions.
Lower support and operational costs, as the Agent absorbs repetitive issues, such as failed payments, card blocks, fund requests, and reimbursement questions. Thus, the Agent frees Finance teams from low-value tasks, while employees act independently, only within the guardrails the Finance team has already set.
Confidence in compliance, as every fix, request, or card action automatically mirrors the defined spend policies, approval workflows, and audit requirements at your organization.
Answers on spend and cash on demand, as managers and Finance can approve or decline funds and cash requests, review a team's cards, transactions, and reimbursables (scoped to their role), break company spend down by team or period, check the cash position across currencies and entities, and see when a balance will run low.
This includes questions about:
money coming in (deposits)
money going out (outgoing balance payments)
international bank transfers
supplier bills and invoices
subscription and recurring spend
card spend policies and spend controls
Playbooks go further: reviewing whether card limits still fit how people spend, checking an upcoming payment run is covered, running a weekly team spend digest, or handing over everything tied to a leaver.
How the Payments AI Agent works for employees
The Payments AI Agent enables employees to do the following:
Request a new card, extra funds, or cash, and freeze or unfreeze a card, with quick commands in the Payhawk Web Portal, Mobile App, and Slack (MS Teams coming soon).
Check a card's details, limits, and available balance, and see the spend policy that applies to them.
Get real-time notifications about failed or declined card transactions, with the reason and clear, actionable steps to resolve the issue on the spot, including a heads-up before a recurring subscription charge is about to bounce for lack of funds.
Have visibility over recent card transactions, authorizations, and refunds.
Follow reimbursement inquiries such as out-of-pocket expenses, mileage claims, and per diem allowances, and get notified when a claim is approved, paid, or sent back.
Ask general knowledge questions about Payhawk's features and how-to guides, and get answers to questions about Payhawk payments and card-related topics.
Accessing the Payments AI Agent
The Payments AI Agent comes out of the box and is included in both the Payhawk mobile app and web portal.
The AI Agent will be accessible in Slack only if a Payhawk Administrator at your company has enabled the communication channel in the Payhawk Web Portal from Settings > AI Office.
To fully utilize the Payhawk-Slack integration, employees must first authenticate, granting Slack access to their expense data. For more information, see the employee guide for setting up the Slack connection.
Processing your data
For more information about how Payhawk processes personal data for the Payments AI Agent feature, see the following resources:
Global Privacy Policy - Covers personal data for which Payhawk acts as a Controller.
Data Processing Addendum - Covers personal data for which Payhawk acts as a Processor.