Why Sage Is Building Its Own AI Instead of Just Plugging In an LLM

Taylor Brown, CPA and director in CLA's digital practice, joins Matt and Doug to break down Sage Intacct's latest release: cash management and three-way matching, the new Financial Intelligent Agent, the MCP AI gateway, and fixed asset and audit trail updates. Drawing on her years as a Sage solutions consultant and her work teaching accounting at UT Austin, Taylor makes the case for why Sage is building AI into the product itself and why a foundational understanding still matters when AI gets accounting wrong 30 to 40 percent of the time.(00:00) - Meet Taylor Brown (01:45) - Can Teachers Do (03:09) - Accounting Paths Beyond Big Four (04:57) - Why Release Notes Matter (05:32) - Cash Tracking AP AR (07:03) - Three Way Match Upgrades (08:50) - Cash Is King Lessons (12:16) - Finance As Profit Center (13:49) - AI Copilot Enters Finance (14:26) - Training AI For ROI (16:10) - Sage Copilot Deep Dive (19:51) - Why Build Sage AI (22:47) - MCP And AI Gateway (23:13) - MCP Use Cases And Data (25:25) - MCP Access And Licensing (25:56) - MCP Licensing Questions (27:17) - Agent Marketplace Gatekeeping (28:12) - How Agents Get Sold (29:38) - Why Agentic AI Matters (30:11) - Customer Built Agents (31:38) - Worst AI Misuse Risks (33:47) - AI Accuracy in Accounting (35:26) - Fixed Assets Release Focus (36:04) - SFAM vs SIG Evolution (37:52) - Reversals and Audit Trail (40:01) - Splitting Assets Efficiency (40:58) - CIP and Migration Advice (43:58) - International Release Differences (46:05) - One Thing to Do Next (48:21) - Crawl Walk Run Change (49:48) - Dad Joke Sendoff Connect with the Hosts:https://www.linkedin.com/in/emilybmaderehttps://www.linkedin.com/in/mattlescaulthttps://www.linkedin.com/in/dlewis715Get free CPE for listening to this podcasthttps://www.earmark.appDownload the Earmark AppApple: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/earmark-cpe/id1562599728Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.earmarkcpe.app