At small business accounting software provider Xero, AI doesn’t just save businesses time — it tells them what to do with that time.
According to Senior Vice President of Product Management Lisa Huang, the company’s AI products act as shared intelligence between small businesses and their advisors. This includes JAX, the company’s AI financial “superagent,” which removes manual work for advisors and enables small businesses to turn complex financial data into clear, actionable insights.
“Xero is already the trusted financial system of record for millions of small businesses, and with AI, we are evolving into their system of action and decision-making,” Huang said.
As AI transforms the way financial services companies support their customers, it’s also changing the way their teams work. This is the case for investment firm PEAK6, where Head of AI Business Enablement Tom Howard and his teammates leverage AI to handle routine tasks, enabling them to rely more on human judgement and creativity in their day-to-day work.
But that’s not all AI has done for Howard’s team. He said that it’s also given team members new capabilities, such as connecting systems and data in ways that wouldn’t have been possible before AI.
“I think we’re still scratching the surface of what AI can actually do, but what really gets me is that this isn’t just another tool in the toolbox; this is fundamentally reshaping how people work,” Howard said.
Read on to learn how technologists at Xero, PEAK6 and fixed income trading network Trumid use AI to modernize their products and enhance their ways of working.
Xero’s small business software is designed to help small business owners accept payments, manage invoices, access bank data, streamline employee payroll and more.
How does your team use AI as a tool?
At Xero, we aren’t just using AI because it’s the latest trend — we’re using it to make our work lives better. We’ve rolled out tools like Glean and Gemini to help our teams stay sharp and focused on what really matters: our customers.
Think of Glean as our ultimate digital assistant. Instead of hunting through Slack or Jira for that one elusive document, Glean finds it instantly across our entire tech stack. Meanwhile, Gemini acts as a creative partner, helping us speed up research and get past the “blank page” stage of content creation. By letting AI handle the “work about work,” we get more time to collaborate, innovate, and actually solve problems.
In your own words, what makes Xero’s product or products special? How has using AI on your team impacted your product, service or way of working?
What makes Xero special is our clarity of purpose. Even as the accounting profession undergoes massive transformation, our vision has stayed the same: to be the most insightful and trusted platform for small businesses and their advisors around the world. AI is now part of the engine powering that vision.
We sit in a uniquely strong position. Xero is already the trusted financial system of record for millions of small businesses, and with AI, we are evolving into their system of action and decision-making. That creates enormous opportunity not just for our customers, but for how our teams build SaaS platforms that genuinely drive business outcomes at scale.
What we offer is a powerful combination: AI that saves you time, and AI that tells you what to do with it. At Xero, our AI products act as shared intelligence between small businesses and their advisors. We are supercharging JAX to evolve from a “Just Ask” assistant to a “Just Done, with Your Control” experience. This is the cornerstone of our vision: to provide an AI financial superagent that delivers completely reimagined experiences, automated workflows and actionable insights. For advisors, it removes manual work so they can focus on strategy, advisory and relationships with their clients. For small businesses, it turns complex financial data into clear, actionable insights that help them make better decisions and grow with confidence.
“What we offer is a powerful combination: AI that saves you time, and AI that tells you what to do with it.”
Internally, AI has reshaped how we work as a team to bring this vision to life. We iterate faster and design with augmentation, not replacement, in mind, focusing on building a platform that is truly built for — and with — our customers. We believe human value remains essential; our AI products are built to amplify that value, ensuring the future of finance is deeply human, practical and anchored in a non-negotiable foundation of security and privacy
What is exciting to you about the potential with AI right now, and why is working on a team that uses new and advanced tools important to you?
What excites me most about AI right now is how it’s fundamentally reshaping the accounting profession and closing the skills gap. The “Accountant of Tomorrow” won’t be defined by data entry or manual busywork, but by advisory, strategy and human insight. At Xero, we are building the platform that makes that shift real.
Accountants and bookkeepers are already trusted advisors. The natural next step is becoming AI advisors – financial guides who help clients interpret insights, make confident decisions, and navigate an AI-driven world. Our work focuses on enabling that transition; we’re building AI products not just to complete tasks to strengthen relationships, and elevate the role of the advisor.
From a technology perspective, this is a rare and pivotal moment. At Xero, we are reimagining what it means to be a system of record by evolving into a system of action and decision-making. With agentic AI, automated workflows and actionable insights embedded across core jobs-to-be-done, we are building experiences that genuinely change how small businesses operate and grow.
Working on a team that builds advanced tools matters because the impact is real, immediate and deeply aligned with Xero’s purpose to make life better for people in small business, their advisors and communities worldwide. We collaborate with small businesses and advisors every day, learning alongside them and building responsibly in a fast-moving landscape. For technologists, product thinkers and designers, there is nothing more rewarding than building the bridge between technical disruption and human-centered advisory. The pace of advancement in AI creates both disruption and opportunity, and that is what makes this work so meaningful.
PEAK6 builds and invests in businesses spanning a variety of industries, from insurance to education.
How does your team use AI as a tool?
We’re still in the early stages, but it’s been exciting to see how quickly people have found ways to make AI useful in their work. Our engineering teams have really embraced AI code assistants; they’re using them to write better code faster and catch potential issues earlier. It’s become a genuine part of their workflow.
On the business side, we’re taking an exploratory approach, and people are finding practical applications everywhere. Research that used to mean opening ten browser tabs now happens through AI tools. Teams are using it to draft presentations, summarize documents, and pull together analysis, tasks that used to take more time than they should have. We’re also seeing AI capabilities show up in tools we already use, like our project management platforms and analytics software.
What’s been interesting is that we’re learning by doing. We’re not waiting for a perfect playbook; we’re trying things, seeing what works and adjusting. Some use cases have been surprisingly effective, others less so, but that’s how you figure out where the real value is. That experimental mindset fits naturally with how PEAK6 operates anyway.
In your own words, what makes PEAK6’s product or products special? How has using AI on your team impacted your product, service, or way of working?
PEAK6 is a collection of businesses that share a common approach. The thread that runs through everything is looking at established ways of doing things and asking if there’s a better way. We tend to find opportunities where technology can make something work better for the people using it.
As for AI’s impact on how we work, it’s been significant. The obvious piece is efficiency. People are using AI to handle routine tasks that used to take up chunks of their day, freeing them up for work that requires human judgment and creativity. But the more interesting part is how it’s expanded what people can do. Take me: I couldn’t write code to save my life. I still can’t. But with AI, I’m building scripts and automations that actually work (most of the time). Teams can pull together comprehensive research on complex topics in minutes instead of days. We’re connecting systems and data in ways that would have required custom development before, and we’re solving problems we wouldn’t have had the bandwidth for before.
“We’re connecting systems and data in ways that would have required custom development before, and we’re solving problems we wouldn’t have had the bandwidth for before.”
What is exciting to you about the potential with AI right now?
The pace of change, honestly. We’re still so early in this, and every few months there’s something new that changes how we think about what’s possible. It’s been a lot of fun just learning alongside everyone else and figuring out what works. I think we’re still scratching the surface of what AI can actually do, but what really gets me is that this isn’t just another tool in the toolbox; this is fundamentally reshaping how people work. The ability to use AI effectively — knowing when to use it, how to prompt it, what to trust and what to verify — is going to be a core skillset going forward not just for technical roles, but for everyone. Being on the ground level of that shift is exciting. We get to help people at PEAK6 build that skillset and figure out how to work differently. Right now, there’s nowhere else I’d rather be working.
Trumid’s fixed income trading network is designed to provide an optimized trading experience, offering real-time analytics, protocol flexibility and more.
How does your team use AI as a tool?
A core part of our client strategy is synthesizing data into actionable insights for our clients, sales teams and leadership.
Our AI integration is twofold. Internally, AI enhances how teams engage with information by streamlining access to insights and reducing friction in finding what’s relevant. Rather than needing to know where something lives or which report to pull, teams can ask questions and be guided to meaningful answers. This accelerates the “how” and allows greater focus on the “why” — understanding what’s working, where clients see value and which emerging market trends and platform engagement patterns deserve deeper attention. Surfacing insights earlier helps teams prioritize effectively and engage more proactively.
Externally, this foundation strengthens our client partnerships. Our sales team enters conversations with a current, holistic view of client engagement and workflow preferences across our protocols, informed by recent activity, conversations and feedback. By bringing together inputs across the organization, these tools ensure discussions reflect the latest progress and priorities, enabling informed, continuous and client-focused collaboration.
In your own words, what makes Trumid’s product special? How has using AI on your team impacted your product, service or way of working?
That same mindset carries through how the product is built. Innovation at Trumid is part of the everyday. Technology, data and commercial teams work in feedback loops, and AI helps shorten the distance from idea to impact. As we adopt new technologies, the platform continuously evolves alongside our clients and the markets we serve. The result is an environment where collaboration empowers individuals to innovate, supports meaningful growth, and delivers work with clear, scalable impact.
“As we adopt new technologies, the platform continuously evolves alongside our clients and the markets we serve.”
What is exciting to you about the potential with AI right now?
What’s most exciting about AI right now is how it’s compressed the cycle from synthesizing information to experimenting with it and sharing it in useful ways. By lowering the barrier to building and testing ideas, AI makes it easier to move quickly from a question to something tangible.
As a strategist, I was able to describe what I needed and within a few hours, build an automated prototype that synthesizes daily performance and proactively shares it. That velocity is becoming the norm, and the real potential isn’t just speed; it’s rethinking how information flows and reimagining what’s possible for our clients, leading to more personalized insights, predictive alerts and automations that clear the way for strategic thinking, both internally and for our clients. That potential is what keeps me energized.
