Case Study Sales Enablement Animated Explainer

AI Agents in Finance:
Forecasting & Data Science

Client

Worktank · Microsoft

Product

Animated Explainer

Audience

Business & Executive Leadership

AI Agents in Finance: Forecasting & Data Science  ·  Microsoft  ·  2024

"What makes it work as a pre-sales piece is the combination of simple use case (a bike shop) and not explaining too much. To some, this will look like magic… your sales team will look like Prometheus bringing fire."

Head of FP&A Practice  ·  Association for Financial Professionals (AFP)

The Challenge

Explaining new technology
to skeptical executives

Microsoft needed to bring the real-world potential of AI agents to life for business leaders without defaulting to a feature walkthrough. The audience was executive decision-makers: short on time, skeptical of hype, and far more interested in business outcomes than technical capability. A standard product explainer wasn't going to move them.

The Approach

Story first.
Technology second.

Rather than explaining AI agents in the abstract, the script was built around a fictional company — Cycleworks — navigating a real challenge in their finance department. The narrative follows their journey from problem to solution, making the technology feel tangible and the possibilities feel personally relevant to whoever is watching. The viewer lands inside a familiar business situation first, so that the technology arrives as an answer to a problem they already understand.

Finches managed the full production pipeline: concept through final delivery, including multi-round stakeholder review with Microsoft.

What we delivered

  • Original narrative concept and Cycleworks scenario
  • Full script and storyboard
  • Animated production pipeline, end to end
  • Stakeholder review management through final delivery

Why it worked

  • Grounded in a business scenario, not a product demo
  • Narrative arc builds investment before the technology appears
  • Executive-level language throughout
  • Short enough to use in a pitch

Results & Impact

Active Sales Tool

Microsoft sales teams voluntarily pull this video into leadership pitches. It wasn't mandated — it earned its place in the toolkit.

Opens Conversations

Teams report richer dialogue about AI possibilities than any product sheet or feature walkthrough produces. It gives people something to react to.

Narrative-First Model

Proved that storytelling outperforms feature listing for complex enterprise technology, at the most demanding audience level in the organization.

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