Why AI Agents will be trusted teammates of Accounts Paybable – Q&A with Jason Kurtz, CEO, Basware
With the deadline for mandatory electronic invoicing in France fast approaching, European Business spoke with Jason Kurtz, CEO of Basware during his visit to the country, including his vision for the use of Agentic AI and its impact on the Accounts Payable (AP) function.
Basware, which works with over 6,500 customers globally, including Mercedes and Heineken says it reported 20% year-over-year increase in sales in 2025, primarily driven by a surge in interest in AI-empowered products.
Q: Mandatory electronic invoicing will begin in France as of 1st September 2026. What challenges will businesses face in preparing for this deadline, and what are the consequences of failing to do so?
The deadline puts pressure on businesses to update their accounts payable and ERP processes, systems, and data to align with the new compliance rules to make sure every invoice meets the new e-invoicing standards.
Failing to comply will carry hefty costs – French authorities estimate they could recoup up to €3 billion annually from invoices previously subject to VAT fraud, late or incomplete payments and errors in reporting – and fines
For CFOs and finance teams, overhauling invoicing processing to meet the new standards isn’t just about avoiding penalties. It’s about protecting future revenue, reducing risk, and maintaining trust with regulators and stakeholders.
Q: Your recent report on AI to ROI suggests that finance leaders are under pressure ‘to do something’ with AI, but many are struggling to do so effectively. What role will AI play in helping French businesses meet the deadline?
Many leaders feel pressure to “do something” with AI, and the ones that get technology adoption right will be the ones who succeed. AI isn’t a magic wand and requires a clear strategy and governance to make a meaningful impact, anchored in areas where value can be proven and scaled – like AP. AI’s role is AP is threefold. First, it accelerates automation across invoice processing, procurement, and financial workflows, reducing manual intervention and enabling teams to scale without adding cost. Second, it improves decision quality by turning fragmented financial data into real-time insights, helping CFOs manage cash flow, risk, and supplier relationships more proactively. Third, and most important for deadline-driven initiatives, AI shortens implementation timelines by identifying process gaps, recommending optimizations, and continuously learning from transaction data to improve accuracy over time.
Q: The research also says that 72% of finance leaders see accounts payable (AP) as the most obvious starting point for agentic AI. How can Basware help in this area, and what might the future look like?
At the end of the day. AP is a data problem, and Basware is solving it with AI. Over the last 40 years, we’ve built the industry’s largest set of structured, high-quality AP data of over 2.5 billion invoices. And we’re applying AI trained on this data to deliver context-aware predictions and recommendations to finance teams so they can spend less time analyzing and more time deciding and acting. The future of finance involves Agentic Finance, where AI entities transact on behalf of the enterprise to drive faster, smarter decisions and real business outcomes. We accomplish through designing trust into the processes and AI capabilities – this is the future we are creating at Basware and preparing our customers for today.
Q: Should finance leaders fear an “AI Armageddon,” and what impact will artificial intelligence have on their jobs?
The “AI is coming for your jobs” narrative makes for good headlines, but we’ve heard this story before. Every major technological shift has sparked anxiety about widespread job loss. But the doomsday scenarios didn’t really play out. AI is one of the most disruptive technologies we’ve ever seen. And it’s certainly going to change the nature of work. But it isn’t going result in the wholesale replacement of people. What it will do is free us to do the work we want to do and make us better at it.
There’s historical precedent for the argument. The assembly line was going to kill manufacturing jobs. Instead, it turned skilled artisans into specialized machine operators. And it actually boosted overall factory employment.
The same scenario is playing out today in AP – an area that would seem ripe for AI to wipe out an entire category of jobs. AI isn’t replacing AP teams, it’s replacing the manual tasks that bog them down so they can do work that is more strategic and meaningful. When they don’t need to spend hours chasing invoices and routing them for approval, AP teams can focus on things like cash flow optimization that impact the bottom line. We’re designing a world where AI Agents will be trusted teammates that today’s AP clerks and managers will oversee.
At the end of the day. AI isn’t about getting rid of people. It’s about getting more out of the people you have by empowering them to be and do their best. The reality is, most companies that are eliminating jobs are not doing it because of AI. They either over hired or don’t have the right people in the right roles and are using AI as an excuse to right the ship.”
Jason Kurtz is CEO of Basware
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