Nearly 88% of businesses agree that their company's future growth depends on getting a better handle on employee spending, and 92% say that their business is making efforts to consolidate tools this year, according to a study released by American Express.
About half (52%) report that they use AI to help manage expenses, often for detecting fraud or errors (42%), categorizing expenses (42%) and capturing receipt data (42%). Forty percent (40%) say that they don’t currently use AI, but plan to in the future.
“Maintaining oversight into company and employee spending is essential for driving growth, and businesses see an opportunity to strengthen visibility and reduce manual work by automating how they manage expenses,” says Eva Reda, EVP at American Express. “To stay ahead, companies need a trusted partner with solutions that can help them transform their financial processes, navigate complexity today and prepare for future growth.”
Key takeaways:
- Half of businesses (50%) say that they are working with more vendors and suppliers compared to two years ago, and 41% say that they have already had to adjust their company's expense policies in 2026.
- A majority (88%) of businesses surveyed agree that they need an expense management tool that can evolve as their business grows and policies change, with two-thirds (66%) saying that they struggle to keep up with the complexity of company spending.
- The need for stronger oversight and control is driving policy adjustments. Among companies that have adjusted their expense policies in 2026, respondents cited that their company had grown and increased the volume of expenses (47%), that they needed to reduce errors or improve accuracy in expense reporting (44%), and that they needed stronger controls over employee spending (42%).
- The vast majority of businesses surveyed use multiple tools to manage their company and employee expenses, with 96% using at least two, and 66% using at least three.
- Half of businesses surveyed (50%) say that their finance tools are not connected to one another. Two-thirds (67%) of businesses surveyed say that it is challenging to maintain control over spending across multiple tools.
- Over six in 10 (64%) businesses surveyed agree that their expense management processes rely too heavily on manual work, and 69% say reconciling expenses has been the biggest drain on their team’s time this year.
- Nine in 10 (92%) say that their business is making efforts to consolidate tools this year.
