Spendesk partners with Dust to roll out custom AI agents

French fintech Spendesk, a platform for spend management and procurement, has partnered with AI infrastructure startup Dust to roll out tailored, secure AI assistants across its organisation. The initiative aims to unify internal AI usage, enhance productivity, and maintain strong compliance with European and UK data regulations.

Enterprises are increasingly turning to automation tools to remain competitive. Dust specialises in enterprise-ready AI agents built on top of secure integrations with workplace tools such as Slack, Notion, and Intercom.

Spendesk, which counts SoundCloud, Gousto, and SumUp among its customers, had already embraced AI in various internal functions, from sales and customer support to accounting automation. But when it sought to scale AI usage across departments, it found itself grappling with fragmented adoption. Different teams were experimenting with disconnected tools, leading to data security concerns and inconsistent usage patterns.

“It’s impossible to use Spendesk without interacting with AI. We’ve implemented no fewer than 15 AI-powered features since 2017, predicting and pre-filling more than 2 million accounting fields each month,” said Rodolphe Ardant, Founder of Spendesk.

“As UK businesses continue to navigate an evolving regulatory and economic landscape, secure AI adoption has never been more crucial. At Spendesk, we found ourselves vetting contracts with individual AI assistants one by one. It wasn’t scalable or cost-effective,” said Axel Demazy, CEO of Spendesk. “It also meant that teams more hesitant to experiment with AI were left behind, unsure of how these tools could support their work or comply with internal policies and local regulations.”

With Dust’s platform, Spendesk employees will build AI agents that interact with internal documentation using natural language - regardless of their technical expertise. These agents are designed to understand each team’s business context, enabling secure, role-specific automation that integrates seamlessly with existing workflows..

“This partnership gives our teams the most powerful productivity tool we’ve ever put in their hands. Internal efficiency translates directly into faster innovation for our customers, helping us deliver both the most in-demand spend management features and the next generation of AI-first capabilities,” said Rodolphe Ardant. “By partnering with a fellow French innovator committed to data security, we’re proving that European tech can lead in AI while staying true to our values of privacy and user empowerment.”

Spendesk’s partnership with Dust reflects a broader trend in Europe: a desire to balance AI innovation with privacy and regulatory compliance. With the EU’s AI Act on the horizon and the UK pursuing its own AI governance framework, companies are under pressure to adopt solutions that are both effective and legally sound.

“We built Dust to help companies create AI agents that are truly useful and trusted by their teams,” said Gabriel Hubert, CEO of Dust. “Spendesk had the vision and urgency to move early, and together we’ve shown what’s possible when AI is deployed thoughtfully and securely at scale.”