In a market where CFOs face relentless pressure to safeguard EBITDA and cash, financial transformation is no longer optional — it’s existential. This urgency was front and center on 20 November 2025, when Sidetrade proudly sponsored the Belgium AI for Finance event in Brussels, bringing together an exclusive community of CFOs, Finance Transformation Directors, O2C leaders, and Collections teams.
Throughout the day, leaders shared a common challenge: rising liquidity pressure, shrinking ROI timelines, and an accelerating need for intelligent, autonomous solutions that can help finance organizations do more with less. The conversations in Brussels echoed the latest findings from the 2025 Sidetrade & PwC Finance & O2C Transformation Study, which reveals that 85% of organizations are now engaged in finance transformation, with cash generation and productivity emerging as top priorities.
Against this backdrop, companies are turning not just to automation, but to Agentic AI — a new generation of intelligent systems that can sense, decide, and act autonomously. Sidetrade is at the forefront of this shift. Our Order-to-Cash platform, powered by Aimie, represents a decisive move from traditional process automation to continuous, autonomous cash performance management.
From Automation to Autonomy
Sidetrade stands at the forefront of this new financial era. Its Order-to-Cash (O2C) platform, powered by Aimie, an advanced AI agent, represents a decisive shift from simple automation to autonomous performance management.
Where traditional automation handles repetitive tasks, Aimie thinks, learns, and acts — transforming finance from a reactive back office into a predictive, value-creating engine. Every day, Aimie analyzes more than US$7.2 trillion in B2B transactions, predicting payment behavior across 40 million companies worldwide.
Through this vast Data Lake, Aimie anticipates late payments, recommends the next best action, and autonomously executes collection strategies. She even initiates 1,000 intelligent outbound calls daily in 29 languages — identifying risks, escalating complex cases, and accelerating cash recovery. This is not robotic process automation (RPA); it is agentic intelligence in action, continuously improving from every outcome.
Grégory Lorito, O2C Industry Expert, Sidetrade, showcasing Aimie’s capabilities and Sidetrade’s value proposition at the dedicated AI for Finance workshop in Brussels.
The Cash Imperative
The Sidetrade & PwC report highlights a new urgency in finance:
- 64% of companies aim for substantial or transformative cash gains.
- 50% expect ROI within 12 months of implementing O2C initiatives.
- AI adoption has surged, with a 145% increase in planned AI investments for 2026.
These figures tell a story of CFOs under mounting pressure to deliver quick, tangible results. In this environment, Aimie offers a proven accelerator, helping organizations unlock working capital and improve liquidity — all while enhancing customer relationships through smarter, data-driven engagement.
Agentic AI: A New Model for Financial Leadership
According to Sidetrade’s VP Sales Europe, Jean-Claude Charpenet, 
Jean-Claude Charpenet – VP Sales for Europe – Sidetrade“Finance leaders no longer seek automation for efficiency alone. They are building intelligent ecosystems that sense, decide, and act — enabling teams to focus on strategic leadership rather than administrative oversight.
That vision aligns with the report’s finding that predictive and prescriptive analytics are rapidly becoming standard. Yet, only 13% of companies currently use predictive models — signaling enormous potential in which Aimie bridges that gap. By turning financial data into foresight, Aimie enables CFOs to forecast collections, manage risk, and align cash targets with strategic goals.
The Human-AI Collaboration
Technology, however, is only half the story. The study underscores the rise of human-AI complementary relationship:
- 89% of executives prioritize upskilling finance teams in data and AI.
- Leadership, collaboration, and analytical mindset are now top competencies.
Sidetrade’s approach embodies this philosophy. Aimie doesn’t replace finance professionals — she augments their intelligence, giving teams more time for high-value analysis and stakeholder engagement. With repetitive, time-consuming tasks delegated to AI agents, finance professionals focus on strategic decision-making and risk mitigation.
Beyond Efficiency: Building the Future of Cash Excellence
While many organizations still rely on fragmented ERP and manual reporting systems, Sidetrade’s technology enables a unified, predictive view of receivables, empowering teams to set and monitor cash targets in real time. This predictive control marks a major shift from retrospective finance to proactive, intelligent cash management.
As agentic AI becomes mainstream, the O2C cycle is transforming into an ecosystem of autonomous collaboration between people, systems, and AI agents — one where performance continuously improves through learning.
Sidetrade’s mission is clear: to help enterprises secure and accelerate cash, reduce operational costs, and strengthen financial agility in an unpredictable economy. From multinational leaders such as Saint-Gobain, Veolia, and Engie to agile mid-market innovators, organizations are leveraging Aimie to turn their financial data into strategic foresight.
A New Standard for AI in Finance
In 2025, finance transformation is not just about cost savings — it’s about building intelligence into every transaction. The combination of deep financial data, generative AI, and agentic automation is redefining how organizations manage cash and customer relationships.
Sidetrade’s Aimie embodies this transformation: a self-learning digital colleague for finance teams, capable of understanding, predicting, and acting with autonomy. In doing so, Sidetrade has not only automated the O2C process — it has reimagined the very fabric of finance performance.
As the AI-for-Finance era accelerates, one thing is clear: the future CFO will not just manage cash — they will orchestrate intelligence.