Runway Launches First Ambient Intelligence Platform for Finance Teams

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Jul 09, 2024, 09:00 ET

New Ambient Intelligence capabilities proactively support finance leaders through all key workflows

SAN FRANCISCO, July 9, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, Runway announced the general availability of its financial planning and collaboration platform. Runway is a modern, user-friendly interface for financial modeling, headcount planning, departmental budgeting, and more.

Breaking beyond the traditional chat and copilot paradigms that define AI products today, Runway is also introducing Ambient Intelligence — a new suite of intelligence capabilities that are deeply embedded in the product, and connected to the entire business. Ambient Intelligence proactively shares insights and automates workflows, without waiting to be prompted.

"The world is changing faster than ever. There's pressure on CFOs to create more value than ever before, and be more strategic and collaborative," said Siqi Chen, CEO, Runway. "Finance leaders are not only expected to understand the whole business; they're also bogged down by the administrative work of backward-looking reporting and controls. With Ambient Intelligence, they can save time and focus completely on driving strategic impact."

Chen continued, "But the big-picture problem isn't just about saving time. Saving time isn't enough for real strategic impact. What teams need is a clear, intuitive understanding of how all the functions of a business work together, from sales and marketing to product and engineering. Clear context creates alignment, enables true collaboration, and accelerates execution. We built Ambient Intelligence into Runway to make finance easier to understand, enabling everyone in the organization to move forward together with clarity and speed."

Seamlessly connecting with over 650 business tools, including the most common accounting, HRIS, CRM, and data warehouses, Runway automatically keeps your forecasts up to date with new actuals. Runway simplifies complex financial processes and ensures data security with features like drag-and-drop scenario planning and robust access management.

By building Ambient Intelligence on top of the financial platform's workflows, Runway helps users understand the context better and analyze auto-generated insights—proactively, and without being intrusive. For example, Runway's Ambient Intelligence explains financial terms, and alerts users when actuals deviate from the forecast.

Runway's Ambient Intelligence features include:

Driver Explanations: Runway generates clear, concise explanations for all your financial drivers. Hover over terms like "Gross Margin" or "Burn" to see easy-to-understand descriptions based on your model, so everyone in your company can quickly understand your business model and all your data.
BvA Variance: Runway automatically analyzes your Budgets vs. Actuals and highlights variances without the need for manual intervention. Maintain a clear and accurate financial overview while saving valuable time and reducing the risk of human error.
Scenario Comparisons: Runway summarizes differences between different scenarios, to show the impact of future plans on your metrics and help you make more confident choices.

The announcement comes on the heels of significant momentum for Runway. In the last 12 months, the company has experienced 20x revenue growth. New customers include Superhuman, AngelList, 818 Tequila, and ConvertKit (soon to be Kit).

Superhuman is an example of a high-growth company that is using Runway to drive complete alignment through their organization.

"With Runway, we saw our efficiency skyrocket with a 50X to 100X improvement, turning hours-long tasks into seconds," said Andrew Maher, Head of Finance, Superhuman. "Complex financial models were distilled into clear, actionable insights, making it easier to respond quickly to key executives. Runway was like adding a touch of magic to our financial strategy, turning data into actionable intelligence—imagine having a co-pilot in finance that brings critical insights alongside number crunching."

About Runway
Runway is a next-generation financial planning platform, offering organizations modern tools for financial modeling and budgeting. Infused with Ambient Intelligence capabilities, Runway proactively offers insights and autonomous workflows to finance leaders with rich context understanding. High-growth companies, including Superhuman, AngelList, and 818 Tequila trust Runway to manage their financial operations and drive strategic decision-making with confidence. For more information, please visit https://runway.com/

SOURCE Runway