A Guide to Enterprise Performance Management in the Era of AI

Enterprise performance management streamlines finance, budgeting, and forecasting activities, giving you in-depth insight into your company’s performance. Unlike spreadsheet based processes, an EPM platform brings structure and governance, enabling CFOs and finance teams to make data-driven decisions and manage their performance with confidence. 

AI enables rapid processing of large data sets, improving the accuracy of plans by aligning strategic, operational, and financial objectives—something previously hindered by numerous underlying drivers. Learn how AI and performance management work together to promote a successful enterprise.

What is Enterprise Performance Management (EPM)?

EPM focuses on data analysis and decision making, ensuring organizational leaders understand what’s happening in their businesses. EPM software is typically integrated with an ERP, which structures all the transactions occurring within a company. The data is then consolidated across the business so that the finance team can prepare plans and budgets supporting the success of the company’s business strategy.

Most importantly, EPM incorporates the forecasting process, which is a forward looking view of the business allowing decision makers to understand how their decisions may impact future performance.

Modern businesses rely on EPM platforms to integrate operational planning activities, increasing agility and making it easier to take advantage of new opportunities.

Benefits of Integrating AI and Performance Management

The use of AI in performance management has made EPM solutions even more valuable for enterprises across all industries, from retail to manufacturing. AI tools use machine learning to analyze data and predict patterns and anomalies. AI-enhanced EPM platforms integrate more data in their analyses, creating more accurate predictions and streamlining the forecasting process.

Leveraging AI to drive performance, finance leaders can get access to real-time insights, speeding up the decision-making process without compromising accuracy. With its ability to run more data, faster, in a structured and automated way that is fully dictated by the planner, AI provides greater agility and allows business leaders to react significantly faster to external disruptions amd feel more confident in their strategic decisions.

Core Features of AI-Driven EPM Systems

AI-driven EPM systems offer these advanced features:

• AI-augmented financial planning and analysis: The FP&A function combines four critical activities: budgeting, forecasting, planning, and analysis. AI-enabled EPM platforms come with tools designed to streamline these activities and provide actionable insights:
  • Data preparation and automation with complex workflows that process large data models accurately and give you the flexibility to change drivers and assumptions.  
  • AI agents that run variance analysis or other ad-hoc analyses on the fly, helping you understand the business from various perspectives while retaining a single source of truth, unlike offline analyses conducted in Excel. With Gen AI, you can generate valuable, actionable insights for the business in real-time. 
  • Scenario modelling and what-if analysis to help you spot trends or anomalies. External data models make forecasting and predictions more accurate and more aligned with the changing reality.
• Automated reporting and forecasting: ML and other AI capabilities allow you to create custom reports with a few clicks, eliminating the need to spend hours poring over data and trying to understand it.
• Intelligent data integration and decision support tools: AI processes data from multiple sources, reducing redundancies that slow the decision-making process. AI-driven EPMs also come with tools to help support strategic decision-making.

Choosing the Right AI-Powered EPM Tools

If you’re ready to integrate AI-augmented EPM tools into your business model, you need a platform that supports your industry-specific needs. For example, if you operate in the health care or finance industry, you’re likely to benefit from AI tools designed to help you understand how compliance obligations affect your bottom line. Data security is also a critical consideration, especially if you’re required to follow HIPAA or other privacy regulations. 

To maximize the benefits of an AI-powered EPM platform, look for these additional features:

• Scenario modeling
• Natural language processing for hassle-free reporting
• Ability to model performance based on key business drivers
• Budgeting and reporting automation
• Alerts for anomalies in the data
• Automatic forecasting based on new data
• Collaborative tools designed to ensure everyone is on the same page

The Future of EPM in the Age of AI

Today’s modern EPM platforms are able to deploy real use cases in AI that can help finance leaders plan more continuously with greater accuracy. In the near future, expect your EPM system to recommend strategic actions instead of just identifying anomalies, produce rolling forecasts as you input data, and identify external risks in your planning process.

Some systems already incorporate natural language processing, allowing users to get instant answers to questions about financial performance (e.g., “What was our profit margin in Q3 2025 vs. Q3 2024?”).

Using AI to Transform EPM

Artificial intelligence has a transformative role in EPM, as it streamlines FP&A processes and provides access to a variety of decision support tools. No matter what type of business you operate, implementing an AI-driven EPM is essential for success. Board offers tailor-made solutions to help you solve the most challenging business problems.

Request a demo today and discover how Board can transform your financial planning.