Analyst Assistant: Our Newest Innovation in AI for Finance and Accounting

• What it is: An agentic AI assistant powered by OpenAI and embedded in the Planful platform that gives analysts instant insights into variances, trends, and forecasts.
• Who it’s for: Analyst Assistant is purpose-built for Finance professionals, including analysts, FP&A teams, and finance leaders, and also benefits the wider business by accelerating variance analysis, anomaly detection, trend spotting, and narrative generation.
• Why it matters: With Analyst Assistant at your side, you can move beyond hours of manual digging to uncover insights hidden in plain sight. Quickly uncover root causes, spot patterns that reveal opportunities, and generate reports in seconds so you spend more time driving decisions, not chasing data.

Finance teams today face a paradox: deliver more insights in less time, reliable forecasts with fewer resources, and greater precision with less friction.

Even with a financial performance management platform in place, a finance team’s work can still be manual and time-consuming. Data collection and aggregation, variance analysis, and narrative generation are mission-critical, but also take time away from the more strategic guidance Finance is expected to provide.

That’s why we’re thrilled to unveil Analyst Assistant, the newest addition to the Planful AI suite.

Planful’s vision is to make AI a supportive partner for finance professionals, taking on manual work so you can focus on higher-value decisions. Our focus is on building persona-based assistants that help keep people in the loop, offering instant insights, contextual explanations, and recommendations, while leaving the final judgment in your hands.

Our philosophy also guides how we think about trust, transparency, and security. Analyst Assistant doesn’t use customer data for training, carries forward role-based access controls, and safeguards information with end-to-end encryption. That way, teams can explore the benefits of AI with confidence, knowing accuracy and governance remain firmly in place.

Learn more about our vision for AI and cutting-edge advancements for finance and accounting in our video series, Planful AI Labs.

Analyst Assistant was designed with Finance teams in mind. It acts as a collaborative partner helping you answer the big questions, surface instant insights, and take repetitive tasks off your plate so you can focus on more strategic work.

Here’s how it adds value to your team:

• Efficiency: Eliminates routine workflows, freeing time for strategy and decision support.
• Accuracy: Surfaces anomalies and variances with clear context, so insights are explainable and trustworthy.
• Foresight: Enables what-if modeling, trend detection, and recommendations to guide proactive decisions.
• Security and Control: End-to-end encryption, dimension-level security, and no use of customer data for training.
• Scalability: Fits small teams and large enterprises alike, with adaptive learning that improves insights over time.

Early adopters of the product have already seen measurable gains:

“Planful and the AI capabilities have helped our team significantly reduce repetitive tasks, allowing the team to provide better strategic support across the company. For us, it is a game-changer. Before Planful, we were often bogged down with time-consuming, non-value-add tasks. Planful has opened the door to efficiency for our team, and with AI, we plan on taking it to the next level.”

— Kevin Washek, Director FP&A at Kimball Midwest.

Finance leaders consistently cite efficiency as a top priority. Our research found that 30% of senior FP&A professionals say their biggest focus for the year ahead is increasing efficiency through automation.

Analyst Assistant was built to deliver exactly that: helping teams reclaim time from manual work and increase their impact on the organization.

Instead of manually pulling, consolidating, and examining data, the Analyst Assistant provides numbers, trends, and reports in seconds. With that instant intelligence, analysts can uncover inefficiencies sooner, spot opportunities earlier, and elevate their role as strategic advisors.

Here’s how the core capabilities break down:

Natural language Q&A

Analyst Assistant uses OpenAI to answer conversational queries tuned to financial vocabulary and Planful’s data structures.

Business users can simply ask questions in plain language, like “Show me OPEX actuals vs. forecast for Q4,” and get back clear, contextual answers — no coding or AI expertise required.

Variance and trend analysis

Variance analysis is one of the most critical and time-consuming parts of an analyst’s job.

With Analyst Assistant, users can ask why a variance happened, drill into departments or vendors, and see contextual explanations instantly.

Trend detection runs in the background, scanning structured data to surface patterns and anomalies so analysts can understand what’s shifting and why.

Narrative generation and visualization

Analyst Assistant turns raw numbers into stories. It can summarize key variances, highlight anomalies, and generate presentation-ready visuals.

With one request, charts and graphs can be exported into Excel or PowerPoint, saving hours of manual effort.

Scenario modeling and forecasting

Beyond reporting, Analyst Assistant strengthens the strategic side of FP&A. It helps teams simulate “what-if” scenarios, generate forecasts, and test assumptions more quickly.

By uniting historicals, current trends, and anomaly detection, the Analyst Assistant improves forecast speed and reliability.

Advanced report analysis

Finance can interact directly with Planful reports, drilling into data by dimensions, sorting results, or filtering for top drivers like “Top 5 cost centers by spend.”

This flexibility puts powerful analysis tools at their fingertips without requiring complicated setup.

Control and customization

Analyst Assistant doesn’t take over. Rather, it supports how you work.

Users can adjust sensitivity levels, request specific breakdowns, or toggle between high-level summaries and detailed outputs. Results can be exported, favorited, or shared across teams for collaboration.

Put your organization on the cutting edge of AI for finance and accounting.

See Planful AI Analyst Assistant in action with an interactive demo.

What is Planful’s Analyst Assistant?

Analyst Assistant is an embedded agentic AI assistant that gives Finance instant insights into variances, trends, and forecasts. It automates time-consuming tasks like anomaly detection, narrative generation, and data exploration so analysts can spend more time on strategic work.

Does Planful’s Analyst Assistant require advanced AI skills to use?

Not at all. It’s powered by natural language processing and fine-tuned for finance, so Planful users can ask plain-language questions and receive clear, actionable responses. No coding or AI expertise is required.

Can Planful’s Analyst Assistant generate financial narratives and visualizations?

Yes. Analyst Assistant can create clear, presentation-ready narratives and visual summaries. Just ask it to visualize key insights, variances, or patterns, and it will generate charts and export them into Excel or PowerPoint, saving analysts hours of manual work.

How does Planful’s Analyst Assistant improve variance and trend analysis?

Analyst Assistant makes variance analysis as easy as asking a question. It can drill down by department, vendor, or business unit and explain anomalies using contextual insights. Trend detection is automated, with the AI scanning structured data to uncover shifts in performance and root causes.