BILL, the intelligent finance platform used by nearly 500,000 businesses to manage, move, and maximize their money, has announced a suite of new agentic AI capabilities — AI that can take actions on a user's behalf rather than simply answer questions — designed to give finance teams greater control and confidence in how AI works for them. The new features are intended to help protect against payment errors, give finance teams control over where AI operates, answer questions through natural-language chat, accelerate onboarding, and organize inbound documents. The rollout spans risk intelligence, a centralized AI control hub, an expanded chat experience, external AI assistant connectivity, AI-assisted onboarding, and intelligent inbox labeling.

SMBs Want More Control and Confidence in AI

Use of artificial intelligence among small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) is widespread, but trust remains limited. According to the company, 86% of SMB leaders report using AI tools in their financial operations, yet only 19% trust AI "completely," with data quality and data security cited as key reasons to keep humans in the loop. In a recent BILL survey of U.S. accounting firms, nearly 90% of respondents described themselves as ambitious when it comes to AI, while only around half said they trust AI data accuracy "somewhat."

BILL said it is addressing this confidence gap by giving finance teams new levels of control, security, and intelligence in their AI-driven financial operations. The individual launches map to the concerns the data surfaces: automated checks aimed at payment mistakes, a control layer for human oversight, and conversational answers for teams that want status without manual digging.

"Finance leaders know their businesses best, and they should be empowered to decide how and where AI works for them. With these new capabilities, BILL is giving finance teams the choice and confidence to use AI to protect their money, log AI actions, and equip them to control and run their business their way," said René Lacerte, CEO and Founder of BILL. "Built on more than $2 trillion in payment volume, BILL's AI has seen just about every payment, vendor pattern, anomaly, and fraud signal. We're leveraging this scale and data to deliver AI that finance teams can trust to help protect their business, and save time and money."

Risk Intelligence for Payments

In fiscal year 2026, BILL flagged approximately $1.5 billion in customer payments that resulted from simple mistakes or unusual transactions — for instance, a vendor sending an invoice for the wrong amount. Errors of this kind take time for finance teams to identify and fix.

The company's new risk intelligence capability checks invoices before a payment is scheduled. By automatically flagging invoices that deviate from a vendor's established billing history at the approval stage, the system enables finance teams to correct mistakes faster while keeping money moving. From August to September 2026, BILL's risk intelligence autonomously detected an average of $138,000 in mistakes or unusual payments per customer, saving them a combined total of more than 1,800 days of manual work. The timing is the point: because the flag lands at the approval stage, teams can resolve discrepancies before a payment is scheduled rather than untangling them after funds have moved.

Centralized Control Over AI

BILL's customer research indicates that almost 9 in 10 finance teams want centralized or in-workflow control over their AI. The company is now delivering exactly that: a consolidated hub where customers can monitor the actions BILL AI has taken on their behalf, switch individual AI tools on or off, and determine how much AI does for them. As BILL continues to introduce more agentic capabilities, the hub is expected to play an essential role in how finance teams tailor, deploy, and control AI across their business. That design speaks directly to the trust barriers the survey data flagged: an action log creates accountability for what AI has done, while per-tool switches let each team decide how much it does.

Chat with BILL (Beta)

Finance teams can now converse with BILL in plain language, directly within their workflow. Users can ask, for example, which vendors need paying and when, where an invoice stands, what is driving card spend, how month-end close and receivables are tracking, or which bills and subscriptions recur, and receive an answer.

Customers already rely on BILL chat for customer support, where AI-handled support conversations have grown more than 250% in one year. BILL is now extending that same experience across the platform. The expanded chat is available in beta, and customers can join a waitlist for access.

BILL Connects to Finance Teams' AI Tools

BILL customers, along with the more than 9 million network members holding a BILL login, can now connect their accounts to available AI assistants through BILL's external Model Context Protocol (MCP). Once enabled, users can ask questions about their BILL financial operations and obtain answers within a single AI chat window.

Thousands of developers already build on BILL's APIs, and usage has grown 7x over the past two years. Setup instructions are available on the developer.bill.com page.

AI-Assisted Onboarding

BILL's new AI-assisted onboarding is designed to get new users up and running faster. Setting up a new platform usually means filling in every field manually; BILL now performs the first pass by personalizing the business profile, recommending products based on how a business works, and helping users add vendors and assign default approvers. Users cut platform setup time by up to 50% and vendor customization time by up to 70%. Customers remain in control, with the ability to review and adjust anything before it is applied.

In addition, BILL launched new inbox capabilities that automatically identify and label incoming invoices and W-9s, allowing finance teams to see what they are looking at without manual sorting. The company described this as the first step toward a more intelligent inbox intended to reduce the manual work of processing and routing documents over time.

Customers Welcome the New Capabilities

"BILL's Risk Intelligence spots and calls out discrepancies, and if an amount seems off, it tells you how and why. I recently had a legal bill 33x higher than average, and BILL flagged it quickly once it hit inbox. Now it's even easier to review and approve bills with confidence, so our team can focus on the tasks that matter," said Cristine Remington, Accounts Payable Manager at AdvicePeriod.

"Instead of me having to double-check, 'Is this the same as last month?' AI in BILL is just that extra set of eyes that has done that work for me already," said Danielle Mason, Accounting Specialist at Vū Technologies.

Availability

The new capabilities are rolling out to customers today, with more on the way. Over the coming months, BILL said it will continue to deliver intelligent finance built for SMBs and accounting firms, with the same focus on accuracy, security, and control. Further details behind the launch are available on BILL's blog and on the BILL website.

The announcement was first published by GlobalFinTechSeries.