The Pentagon has until the end of 2028 to pass a full financial audit. On The Future, which aired on CNBC this past weekend, Terzo CEO & Co-Founder Brandon Card joined Ambassador (Lt. Gen., Ret.) Douglas Lute to talk about what it will take to get there, and why AI makes it possible for the first time.
A 2028 deadline and a purchasing problem
Two years ago, Congress passed a law requiring the Pentagon to pass an audit by the end of 2028. As Ambassador Lute pointed out, roughly 60% of the defense budget goes to purchases. That means supplier contracts, invoices and payments sit at the center of the audit challenge.
The issue isn't willingness. "It's not that the government wants to be inefficient," Lute said. "They're dealing with legacy systems." Brandon added that those legacy tools often kept workers from getting this work done at all.
Why now, and not 10 years ago
Lute asked the obvious question: why is Terzo available today, and not a decade ago? It all ties back to the hardware. About five or six years ago, chips had major breakthroughs. Today's systems are powerful and accurate enough to automate financial intelligence for the first time.
"This is what people are struggling with in the private sector and the public sector," Brandon said. Whether it's a federal agency or a Fortune 500 finance team, the problem looks the same: too much spend, too little visibility.
Built for supplier contracts and spend
What sets Terzo apart is focus. Rather than a general-purpose AI tool, Terzo is built specifically for supplier contracts, invoices and financial data. "The decisions that used to take months, we can now do in minutes," Brandon said.
For Lute, speed was only part of the story. "More impressive to me is that you can tee up key decisions armed with better financial visibility," he said. That visibility is exactly what an audit demands.
Room for growth
"There's no soldier that wears the uniform that doesn't realize that we can do better," Lute said.
The tools to close that gap now exist. With the right financial intelligence, the Pentagon and every enterprise finance team can move from months to minutes.
Watch the full segment on YouTube above.
See how Terzo turns supplier contracts and spend into financial intelligence:
