OpenAI picks Brex for global spend and finance tasks
Brex said OpenAI has chosen its platform for global spend and financial operations, giving the company a more prominent role among financial software suppliers serving large AI businesses.
As OpenAI expands teams and infrastructure across multiple markets, it is using Brex for global card issuing, payments and spend management. The setup is designed to give finance staff real-time visibility into spending and automate parts of expense, compliance and accounting work.
The deal adds OpenAI to a list of AI-focused customers Brex cites, including Anthropic, Cursor, Vercel, Granola, Sierra and Mercor. It also comes as finance software groups compete to sell tools that promise tighter spending controls and less manual processing for fast-growing technology businesses.
Brex has also been expanding AI features in its software. Recent updates include what it describes as an agent platform to automate workflows across expenses, compliance and accounting, along with an app inside ChatGPT that lets users query expense information through the chatbot.
The ChatGPT app allows customers to view spend data and policy information using their existing permissions and controls. The launch reflects a broader push by software vendors to place finance and operations data inside widely used AI interfaces instead of requiring staff to switch between systems.
Brex also disclosed operating figures intended to show how much work its automation tools remove from finance teams. In 2025, it said, its software freed more than USD $163 million in annual salary dollars and saved customers more than 208,000 hours each month by reducing manual expense and accounting tasks.
Nearly 70% of all expenses processed on its platform are now handled entirely by automation, according to Brex. It added that managers review expenses six times faster and accounting teams close their books three times faster when using those tools.
Finance demand
The OpenAI deal underlines the growing importance of finance infrastructure for companies building AI products and data centre capacity at speed. Rapid hiring, rising cloud and compute bills, and international expansion can create uneven spending patterns that are difficult to manage with older finance systems.
For suppliers such as Brex, which has created an opportunity to sell card, payments and software products as a single operating layer for finance teams. The pitch is that automation can reduce manual checking while preserving approval rules and visibility over company spending.
Brex operates in more than 200 markets and sells a mix of corporate cards, spend management software and banking products. It says tens of thousands of businesses use its services, ranging from start-ups to larger established groups.
Its customer roster already includes technology and consumer names such as DoorDash, TikTok, Robinhood, Zoom, Plaid, SeatGeek and the Boston Celtics. Adding OpenAI strengthens Brex's standing with a group of AI companies that has become a closely watched source of software and infrastructure spending.
Pedro Franceschi, Chief Executive Officer of Brex, described the scale of OpenAI's operations as unusual even among fast-growing technology companies. "OpenAI is operating at a scale and speed that few companies in the world ever reach," he said.
"I'm excited for Brex's agentic technology to support OpenAI as we continue to help companies ensure speed and control in finance move in parallel," Franceschi added.