Xero hits one billion AI account suggestions milestone

Cloud accounting firm Xero announced it has delivered more than 1 billion machine learning recommendations to subscribers, a milestone in the company's push to automate admin and reduce burdens on small businesses and their advisors.

Xero's personalised machine learning systems delivered more than 750 million invoice and bill code recommendations, and more than 250 million bank reconciliation recommendations since the features were first launched in March last year.

The milestone demonstrates Xero's investment in automation, artificial intelligence, and machine learning.

Since introducing the first AI-led features a year ago, automation has become a foundation of the Xero platform to benefit its users.

For every suggestion Xero provides, small businesses and their advisors can save time and create significantly more accurate data.

Across the 800,000 invoices filed every day in Xero, small businesses have collectively saved in excess of 307 hours in the first year.

Xero's ongoing investment in AI is driven by a focus to automate the menial and repetitive tasks of running a business while ensuring more accurate data for business owners, and accountants or bookkeepers.

Many business owners and managers find themselves doing the administrative parts of their job after work hours or over the weekend.

By using automation and AI, Xero aims to reduce the time these tasks take and helping business stay in business hours.

"At the heart of Xero's automation vision is to augment humans, not replace them," says Xero product executive general manager James Simpson.

"We want to reduce the burden of doing time-consuming tasks to allow businesses to do more of what they love.

"The scale of what our first AI features have already achieved demonstrates the power of our innovation, and we're excited to introduce the next wave of products to further contribute to this," he adds.

The impact of Xero's AI milestone extends beyond small businesses to include their accounting and bookkeeping partners.

Partners can use the insights to develop a greater understanding of their clients' business and use the time automation frees up to scale their own business and improve the quality of advice they give to their clients.

"We develop products based on solving the challenges our partners and users face," Simpson says.

"Reducing the time partners have to spend on menial tasks allows them to develop the skills and capacity to build and deploy high-value products and services.