During 2018, I set the AppZen team a similar challenge. I asked them to imagine what autonomy would look like in a finance environment. I asked them whether a self-driving finance department was fact or fiction.

And today, at the AppZen Autonomous Finance Summit, just over 2 years after I set that original challenge, I have the pleasure of showcasing our first, and indeed the world’s first, autonomous finance solution — AppZen Autonomous Payables.

The result is spectacular, delivering a seismic shift to the world of finance software. But to fully grasp the magnitude of this change, we need to explore what we mean by autonomy and why it is so important.