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The FinOps Agent is a Slack-integrated AI assistant that provides cost optimization capabilities for your cloud infrastructure. You can use the Agent in two ways:
  • Ask questions: Get answers about Vantage features (via the Vantage Docs MCP), query cost and usage data (via the Vantage MCP), and understand your cloud spend—no action required.
  • Take action on recommendations: Enable the Agent to monitor your infrastructure, identify optimization opportunities, and automatically remediate cost issues (with optional approval workflows).
When enabled for automation, the FinOps Agent operates in three stages:

1. Scans

Your cloud environment for issues like unused or underutilized resources.

2. Identifies

Optimization opportunities and waste found within your environments.

3. Acts

To remediate issues on your behalf, while keeping track of any actions taken.
The FinOps Agent will expand its feature set over time to support additional providers, infrastructure changes, and automation capabilities.

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Get Started

Ensure you meet the following requirements:
The FinOps Agent is available to paying Vantage customers. The Agent is not available to the free tier.To learn more about Vantage plans or to contact sales, visit the Vantage pricing page.

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Enable the FinOps Agent

1

Access the Onboarding wizard

From the Vantage console, navigate to the Recommendations tab. A banner is displayed at the top. Click Get Started. (If you dismiss the prompt, click FinOps Agent.)
You can also access the FinOps Agent settings page to open the Onboarding workflow.
2

Configure Slack integration

The Agent sends notifications directly to your Slack workspace.
  • If you’ve already installed the Vantage Slack integration for Cost Report notifications or alerts, you’ll be prompted to update your permissions to enable the Agent.
  • If you haven’t installed the Slack integration yet, you’ll be prompted to log in to your workspace.
Follow the on-screen instructions to complete the Slack authorization. When prompted, select a channel where Vantage will post action approvals and recommendations.
3

Select recommendation types and approval workflows

For Automation Preference, select one of the following options:
  • Autonomous: Agent acts immediately
  • Owner Approval: Your team approves each recommendation action sent via Slack
Your selection applies to every enabled recommendation type. Select which recommendation types (e.g., Compute Savings Plans, Redshift Reserved Instance).For detailed information about how the approval workflow operates, see Approval Workflow.
4

Configure provider permissions

To enable the Agent to take actions on your behalf, you may need to add additional provider permissions. If required, the onboarding wizard will display instructions for updating your AWS permissions using the AWS CLI, Terraform, or the IAM Console. After updating your permissions, click Complete Setup to continue.
5

Complete onboarding

Once all steps are complete, a confirmation screen is displayed. The FinOps Agent is now active and ready to use. An introductory message is sent to the channel you selected during onboarding.
6

Invite the Agent to Slack channels

Invite the Agent to additional channels at any time after onboarding using the /invite @Vantage command. Once invited, the FinOps Agent will introduce itself and explain its capabilities. You can invoke the Agent by tagging @Vantage in any channel where it’s present, including in threads.

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Interact with the FinOps Agent

Tag @Vantage directly to interact with the Agent in Slack. The Agent only responds when explicitly mentioned. This applies to both new conversations and follow-up replies in threads.
For general help on using Slack, such as how to mention users or apps, create threads, or use commands, see the Slack Help Center.
In a Slack channel, tag the Agent directly to start a conversation: 
@Vantage What was our AWS EC2 spend last month?
The FinOps Agent will reply in the thread: 
Last month's AWS EC2 spend was $3,240...
Whenever you ask follow-up questions, be sure to tag @Vantage in your reply so the Agent is notified. If you do not tag @Vantage the Agent will not reply: 
Reply in thread:

@Vantage Can you show me the top three regions by EC2 spend?
Keep in mind that if multiple people are conversing in the same channel or thread, anyone can prompt @Vantage, but the FinOps Agent will only respond with information relevant to the identity and permissions of the user issuing the prompt.
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FinOps AI Prompt Guide

For comprehensive best practices and detailed prompting examples, see the dedicated FinOps AI Prompt Guide page.

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Approval Workflow

When the FinOps Agent finds a savings opportunity, it sends a message to your designated Slack channel, similar to the below example:
💰 Compute Plan Recommendations Available

Based on your recent usage, I found that your account could save by purchasing an AWS Compute Savings Plan. Here are savings options for a 1-year, no upfront payment savings plan:

1️⃣ Conservative: 0.31/hr coverage — Est. 112/mo savings
2️⃣ Moderate: 0.46/hr coverage — Est. 168/mo savings
3️⃣ Aggressive: 0.61/hr coverage — Est. 224/mo savings

The Agent curates messages for each recommendation type it detects and provides multiple options for approval when appropriate. When the FinOps Agent proceeds to take an action (either after approval or autonomously), it follows these steps:
  1. The Agent posts a message in the Slack channel where recommendations are directed, outlining its action plan. An explicit click is required to initiate the action.
  2. The Agent executes the action in your cloud environment.
  3. An entry is logged to the Vantage Audit Log for full transparency and traceability.
  4. The Agent reports back in the Slack thread with a summary of what was completed and the estimated savings achieved.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Below are categorized answers to frequently asked questions.

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Getting Started

You must be a paying Vantage customer. The Agent is not available to the free tier.
You will be able to utilize the FinOps Agent within Slack for answering questions about your costs and Vantage in natural language, but will not be able to perform automated remediation.
The FinOps Agent is designed to work where your team already collaborates. Slack is the most common communication platform for enterprises, making it the ideal interface for proactive, targeted cost optimization actions. The Agent sends recommendations directly to a channel where your team can inspect and approve them.
Not at this time; however, in the future, we will expand the capabilities of the FinOps Agent to integrate into other approval workflows, such as Microsoft Teams, and via the Vantage console.
You must either have a credit card on file or be subscribed to a metered marketplace subscription through the cloud vendor you purchase Vantage.

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Using the Agent

During onboarding, you’ll select at least one Slack channel to invite the Agent to. You can invite the Agent to additional channels at any time using the /invite @Vantage command. Once invited, you can interact with the Agent by tagging @Vantage.
Once integrated, you can add the FinOps Agent to as many channels as you like. Your cost recommendations will always be sent to the channel designated for approvals during onboarding.
At this time, the FinOps Agent can only be messaged in channels. Support for direct messaging will be available in the future.
No, the Agent can only converse in text, as well as through Slack Blocks, to create assets such as tables. We hope to add this functionality in the future.
Yes, you can tag the FinOps Agent in Slack and ask for details about any recommendation. The FinOps Agent will provide context about the usage patterns, historical data, and calculations that led to the recommendation. This transparency helps you make informed decisions about which optimizations to approve.
Yes. The FinOps Agent is fully aware of your existing Reserved Instances and Savings Plans commitments. All recommendations are calculated based on your uncovered usage after applying existing commitments, ensuring you don’t over-commit or duplicate coverage.
The FinOps Agent uses Vantage’s MCP servers (Vantage MCP and Vantage Docs MCP) under the hood to access your cost data and documentation. However, the Agent provides a pre-configured, Slack-integrated experience that doesn’t require you to set up your own MCP client.Vantage MCP: Allows you to connect your own AI tools (like Claude, Cursor, or Goose) directly to Vantage’s APIs to query cost data and create reports using natural language. You have full control over which AI tool you use and how you interact with it.FinOps Agent: A ready-to-use AI assistant built into Slack that uses the MCP servers on your behalf. The Agent can answer questions, create reports, and take action on savings recommendations—all without requiring you to configure an MCP client. It’s designed for teams who want an immediate, integrated solution without the setup overhead.Both options respect your RBAC permissions and provide access to the same underlying Vantage data and APIs.

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Permissions and Security

Only Vantage account Owners are allowed to approve actions.
The FinOps Agent performs a lookup of the email of the Slack user with the list of authenticated Vantage users. The email of your Slack user must match the email of your Vantage user in order for authentication to be successful. If this is not the case, please reach out to support@vantage.sh for assistance.
Yes, in order to use the FinOps Agent, you must be a registered user in Vantage.
Yes, Vantage will match the roles and permissions of your Vantage user when communicating with the FinOps Agent.
No, your data will not be used to train models. The Agent only uses data fetched directly from your account via Vantage’s APIs. All enhancements to the model will be done as prompt engineering from Vantage engineering teams to address feedback from customers and provide more guided answers.
The new Vantage Slack app will request the following permissions in order to perform its functions:
  • Content and info about channels & conversations
    • View messages and other content in direct and group direct messages that “Vantage” has been added to
    • View basic information about public channels in your workspace
    • View basic information about private channels that “Vantage” has been added to
  • Content and info about your workspace
    • View people in your workspace
    • View email addresses of people in your workspace
  • Perform actions in channels & conversations
    • View messages that directly mention @vantage in conversations that the app is in
    • Join public channels in your workspace
    • Send messages as @vantage
    • Start direct messages with people
  • Perform actions in your workspace
    • Allow “Vantage” to act as your App Agent
    • Add shortcuts and/or slash commands that people can use

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Actions and Automation

When the FinOps Agent proceeds to take an action (either after approval or autonomously), it follows these steps:
  1. The Agent posts a message in the Slack channel where recommendations are directed, outlining its action plan. An explicit click is required to initiate the action.
  2. The Agent executes the action in your cloud environment.
  3. An entry is logged to the Vantage Audit Log for full transparency and traceability.
  4. The Agent reports back in the Slack thread with a summary of what was completed and the estimated savings achieved.
Customers can opt to disable automated actions at any time. Many optimizations (like rightsizing or Savings Plans) will be reversible within specified periods, while some purchases (i.e. RIs) are permanent. Audit logs provide traceability for governance.Certain meaningful actions will also be queued for later in the day vs instantaneously to allow a human to potentially intervene. For example, if you are making a commitment for a Savings Plan for hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars, it will put into place an arbitrary delay in case you decide to reverse it.All actions are logged in the Vantage Audit Log for full transparency and traceability, allowing you to review what was changed and when
At launch, the FinOps Agent only supports actions for AWS. Future provider support is planned for Azure, GCP, Datadog, and more.
You can view all actions taken by the FinOps Agent in AWS CloudTrail by filtering for events initiated by the IAM role that the FinOps Agent assumed. This allows you to see exactly what changes were made, when they occurred, and which role was used to execute them.
Within the Vantage Audit Logs, you will be able to see the following:
  • Time the recommendation was provided
  • Time the recommendation was approved
  • Vantage User that approved the remediation
  • What Resources were altered as a part of the recommendation remediation
  • Time the action was taken in the cloud provider

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Configuration and Management

Yes, once the FinOps Agent is configured, you will have access to an Agent Settings page where you can opt in and out of all offered recommendations.
You can pause the FinOps Agent’s automated actions and recommendation notifications at any time through the Vantage console by turning off a particular recommendation or all recommendations at once. This might be useful during periods of significant infrastructure changes, migrations, or organizational transitions. You can resume the Agent whenever you’re ready.
Yes, you can change the location where recommendations are sent at any time through the FinOps Agent Settings page in the Vantage console.
If the designated Slack channel is deleted, the FinOps Agent will no longer be able to send notifications about new recommendations or completed actions. If you have the Vantage Slack application added to other channels, you will be notified that a new channel needs to be set. You will also see your Slack integration in an Error state within the Vantage console. You’ll need to reconfigure the FinOps Agent’s Slack integration and designate a new channel through the Vantage console to resume receiving notifications.
If you have multiple integrations of the same provider, the FinOps Agent will provide additional context about which integration it is acting on.
You can leave feedback about your experience using the Agent or Vantage in general by telling the Agent that you have feedback to share. This will prompt the feedback tool from the Vantage MCP, and your message will be sent directly to the Vantage team for review.
This depends on your organization’s Slack settings. As the application is currently under Marketplace review from Slack, this may require elevated permissions, such as Workspace Owner, in order to install. Check with your Slack Admin if you encounter any permission errors installing the Vantage app.
Vantage is currently in contact with Slack to have the application approved for downloading through the Slack Marketplace.
Yes, the OAuth URL for installing the app is created through the Vantage console, so any user that is looking to install the Vantage Slack App will need to do this through the Vantage Console until it is approved in the Slack Marketplace.
Autopilot will continue to function as normal. If you are currently set to “requires approval” and you integrate the Agent into your Slack, you will begin to get notifications via Slack as well.The configuration settings for Autopilot have moved to the Agent section of the settings page, and the graphs for AWS Compute and the additional RI services will remain unchanged. In addition, the navigation link for Autopilot has moved under the Recommendations navigation header.
The Vantage FinOps Agent only has access to the account your Vantage user directly has access to, meaning that you can access your MSP Management account but not any child Managed accounts. For automating recommendations, the same applies to only remediating those in your Management account. Functionality for accessing data and remediating recommendations in child accounts will be available in the future.

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Technical Details

The FinOps Agent is powered by OpenAI and Cloudflare, providing the AI capabilities and infrastructure needed for natural language processing and cloud cost optimization.