Accounting software company MYOB this week plans to launch a new artificial intelligence powered tool as it ups the stakes in its marketplace battle with NZ-based Xero, now being run by Australian Steve Vamos, a former Microsoft Australia chief.
MYOB claims its new AI tool, dubbed Advisor, outstrips rival AI products from Xero and Intuit. It does this, says CEO Tim Reed, pictured, by making it both quick and easy to mine hidden data in a company’s books, using machine learning and natural language generation technologies.
The reports are on sales, cashflow, business expenses and debtor management and can be successfully mined in five minutes rather than many hours using Microsoft Excel, Reed has said.
MYOB product chief David Weickhardt told the Fin Review that the big difference is MYOB’s use of natural language generation to provide clearly worded explanations of the graphs in reports.
Traditional products in this area “don’t have the natural language generation or conversation starters and they’re not as fast or easy to use,” Weickhardt said.
