Top Moments From Perform25 in Miami

Finance, accounting, HR, marketing, and business leaders came together this week at Perform25 in Miami to connect, learn, and get inspired about the future of finance. More than 400 planning professionals, industry experts, and Planful partners joined us in person to explore new ideas, share real-world success stories, and elevate their approach to financial performance management.

Perform25 was packed with compelling sessions led by visionary thought leaders, Planful customers, and partners diving into today’s AI and automation capabilities and offering hands-on insights to help organizations build their future of finance today.

If you couldn’t make it to Miami — or want to catch a session you missed in person — read on for a recap of the event and details on how to watch recorded sessions.

Grant Halloran, Planful CEO, opened Perform25 unpacking the challenges facing finance teams today. Millions of finance positions remain unfilled. Nearly three-quarters of CPAs are set to retire soon. Fewer students are studying accounting. The result? Teams are overworked, stretched thin by manual tasks, disconnected data, and a growing workload.

Grant reframed this challenge as an extraordinary opportunity for finance teams: it’s their moment to lead with confidence, embrace innovation, and redefine success. These finance and accounting professionals want to make an impact and shape decisions, not just complete tasks.

During the keynote, Grant presented his vision for how automation, collaboration, and innovation can be embedded into daily workflows to elevate teams above those challenges.

• Automation can be used to empower people, instead of replacing them. This frees teams to move faster, think more creatively, and add more value.
• Collaboration turns meetings into true partnerships with the business, integrating finance teams into decision-making processes using real-time insights to co-create solutions in tandem with business leaders.
• Innovation, fueled by AI, surfaces insights and models thousands of possibilities in seconds, where humans would require days or weeks to do the same.

AI innovation is the crux of this vision. More than half of global finance teams already use AI-powered FP&A tools, and nearly 90% are on the path to doing so, according to our recent global survey of finance leaders. It’s clear that you’re already behind if you’re not on board with AI today.

Building on the keynote, Planful’s Chief Technology Officer, Sanjay Vyas, and Chief Product Officer, Steve Welsh, explained how Planful’s latest innovations are transforming financial performance management. Thanks to the incredible work from our R&D team, Planful is delivering new and enhanced products designed to elevate every team and process across the Office of the CFO.

Sanjay pulled back the curtain on Planful’s proprietary, patented AI technology that’s purpose-built to understand the nuance of financial data and the unique language of finance and accounting. This technology doesn’t just recognize user intent and increase reliability; it’s embedded in a secure, intuitive interface that makes integrating AI into everyday workflows seamless and approachable.

Steve then covered Planful’s roadmap for bringing Grant’s vision to our customers with persona-based AI assistants and automation that elevates work, keeps humans in the loop, and augments workers instead of replacing them. Planful AI works to extend teams’ capabilities and deliver value and support to finance and accounting professionals.

Capping off the product session were reveals of new Planful products enabling automation, collaboration, and innovation, including:

• Planful AI extends our AI/ML suite with persona-based assistants tailored to the unique needs of finance teams. Built through customer feedback and co-innovation, these assistants reduce repetitive tasks, surface insights faster, and free teams to focus on strategic work. Planful AI augments human effort with targeted support that improves insight generation and decision-making.Now available to early adopters:Analyst: Delivers variance insights, narrative generation, report analysis, and scenario building to support financial analysts.Planner: Provides forecasting and scenario optimization for better planning agility to support financial planners.

  Controller: Automates compliance reviews and adjustments to streamline audit readiness to support controllers.

• Workforce Pro enhances Planful’s powerful Workforce Planning solution with deeper granularity, greater flexibility, and more automation that empowers organizations to optimize workforce investments and drive stronger business-wide alignment. Advanced workforce planning capabilities of Workforce Pro include granular cost transparency, detailed analytics, custom compensation logic, live headcount tracking, and more.
• Consolidations Premium adds to Planful’s Consolidations solution capabilities to manage complex ownership structures with flexibility, visibility, and control, further reducing manual work and streamlining close and consolidation.

Additional innovations included a new Snowflake connector, an upcoming Tableau connector, and new forecasting capabilities for Marketing that empower marketers to forecast against budgets at every level of their marketing plan.

Read more: Planful Announces AI-Enabled Product Innovations to Help CFOs Address Talent Shortages and Drive Performance

Planful welcomed more than two dozen new members of the Champions Club at Perform25, plus announced the latest Planful Customer Award winners.

Planful’s Champions Club is a program that recognizes the best and brightest in Planful’s ecosystem and their outstanding contributions to our community. Members earn benefits such as invitations to private events and access to an expansive network of Planful experts where they can share expertise, ask questions, and build relationships.

Planful Customer Award winners are selected based on submissions from Planful partners, customers, and employees. This year’s winners are:

• Innovation Award Winner: The Washington Post for applying innovation and creativity to turn a manual, disconnected workforce planning process into a focused, strategic effort.
• Team Sport Award Winners: WellMed Medical Management for collaborating across its business and sister entities to elevate financial performance management through leadership, advocacy, and shared solutions.
• Advocacy Award Winner: StackAdapt for sharing its story of company-wide planning modernization and scalability and the resulting impact at events, with third parties, and more.
• Global Trendsetter Award Winner: Prologis for shaping the future of financial performance management by demonstrating excellence in streamlining complex planning in a large, multi-currency, global organization.
• Rookie of the Year Award Winner: Sycuan Casino Resort for its rapid deployment and fast time-to-value with Planful across more than 80 departments, leveraging the full breadth of the platform, from workforce planning and budgeting to Structured Planning and reporting.

Read the full list: Congratulations to Planful’s 2025 Champions Club Inductees and Customer Award Winners

Throughout Perform25, Planful customers from a wide range of industries and global regions took the stage to share their experiences, strategies, and lessons learned.

Leaders from finance, accounting, marketing, and beyond showed how they’re using Planful’s AI, automation, and product innovations to scale their efforts, accelerate decision-making, and elevate financial performance management across the business.

Customer sessions featured voices from organizations like Igloo Corporation, Global Medical Response, Specialized Dental Partners, Orion Group Holdings, Safety National, The CFO Leadership Council, The Lead Group, and Fortune Fish & Gourmet—each offering real-world insights into what’s working and what’s next.

A huge thank you to everyone who joined us for Planful Perform25—whether you were there in person, tuned in virtually, took the stage, sponsored a session, or helped make it all happen behind the scenes. You brought the energy, insights, and inspiration that made this our most exciting Perform yet.

Missed a session or couldn’t attend this year? We’ve got you covered. Our Perform24 On-Demand Hub is available now, packed with standout sessions from last year and past events.

And the best part? Perform25 recordings are coming soon. We’re putting the finishing touches on the new on-demand hub, so keep your eyes peeled. You won’t want to miss what’s next.