Anaplan vs Cube (2026)

Data reaches Anaplan through Anaplan Data Orchestrator, which connects, transforms and loads data from source systems into planning models, and through CloudWorks for cloud storage, a prebuilt Informatica connector, a command line utility for on premises jobs and transactional and bulk APIs. The agents work on that data inside Anaplan.

Analyst writes updates back to the live planning model within the user's permissions, CoModeler edits import data sources and creates list import actions, and the role based agents start Anaplan workflows. None of them posts a change into an ERP, CRM or HR system on its own.

Sourceanaplan.com/platform/data-management-and-integrationsread 2026-10-13

Cube connects to hundreds of source systems, with guides for NetSuite, Salesforce, Workday, Sage Intacct, Snowflake, Databricks, ADP Workforce Now, QuickBooks, HubSpot, Rillet, Dynamics 365 Business Central and Campfire, and syncs them on a schedule or on demand. Agents can start a fresh import from an existing connection before they answer, and they put their work into Cube scenarios, Boards, Tables and decks. None of them books an entry, updates a deal or changes an employee record back in the ERP, CRM or HR system.

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Anaplan Workflow breaks a planning process into tasks, approvals and handoffs with owners and deadlines, and ties them to data updates run by Data Orchestrator. Workflow Agent builds those flows from a typed or spoken description, a document or a whiteboard image, adjusts them as the process changes and flags bottlenecks with fixes such as adding a reviewer. The role based agents for finance, sales, supply chain and workforce share one calculation and data foundation, so each one works with the plans of the other functions in view.

Sourceanaplan.com/platform/anaplan-workflowread 2026-10-13

Charlie, the super agent, breaks a question into tasks, routes each piece to one of four agent teams (Data Managers, Analysts, Planners and Business Partners), lets them pull, reconcile, model and draft, then checks the combined answer against the source data before returning it. One request can run from a data refresh through variance analysis to a drafted board deck. Cube Workflows add task lists with owners, assignees, statuses and due dates for processes such as the month end close.

Sourcecubesoftware.com/ai-agentsread 2026-10-13

Workflow launches tasks by itself when a threshold is crossed, a condition is met or an upstream change lands in the model, and any task can run on a schedule. Data updates triggered by Data Orchestrator feed the same process. The role based agents watch performance continuously and send alerts when they spot a deviation or a risk, so the finance agent can surface a variance before anyone asks. People also reach the agents by typing or speaking a question inside their Anaplan applications, on desktop or mobile.

Sourceanaplan.com/platform/anaplan-workflowread 2026-10-13

People reach Charlie in the Cube Workspace, in the Excel and Google Sheets add ins, in Slack and Teams, and from any MCP assistant such as Claude or ChatGPT. Anomaly Detection watches the numbers and flags lines that look off before anyone asks. Source systems sync on a schedule, so fresh actuals land in the model and the plans update around them without someone starting the work.

Sourcecubesoftware.com/ai-agents/analystsread 2026-10-13

Agents answer from the customer's live planning models, modules and lists, and Anaplan's data ontology ties them to the business context of finance, supply chain, sales and workforce planning. Analyst queries across every model behind an application, works from a synced copy of the data that honors selective access, and reads extra context admins add in the notes of any line item.

The calculation engine computes the numbers, so each figure in an answer comes from the model, and Analyst shows the source data behind it. CoPlanner works from key data points in the application's models, refreshed on a regular cadence, so its answers can lag the latest change to a plan.

Sourceanaplan.com/platform/anaplan-analystread 2026-10-13

Charlie answers from the customer's own Cube. It decides which slices of actuals, budgets, forecasts and scenarios it needs and fetches them through the governed layer, with the company's formulas, account and entity hierarchies and currency conversions already applied, so revenue means what the company means by revenue. It can drill from a summary figure to transaction lines in the connected source systems, and every number opens back to the records behind it.

Sourcehelp.cubesoftware.com/hc/en-us/articles/36376094163092-about-ai-at-cuberead 2026-10-13

CoModeler knows the current state of the model and remembers the last few prompts of the conversation, which survives a page refresh, an accidental close or signing in again, but conversations are not saved from one session to the next. Analyst carries follow up questions within a session and keeps no chat history once the session ends or the user moves to another page. What lasts beyond that is the planning model itself, the workflow history and the audit trail, all of which belong to the application.

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Each conversation with Charlie and each Planner session is saved for the user who started it, and a History view reopens any of them to carry on where it left off. Context stays inside one conversation, so starting a new one for an unrelated question keeps the earlier context from carrying over. Admins can also write standing instructions for Charlie, such as always showing budget against actuals or how the fiscal calendar runs, which apply in every conversation for every user. Nothing an agent learns in one conversation reaches the next.

Sourcehelp.cubesoftware.com/hc/en-us/articles/41283352702356-chat-with-charlie-cube-s-ai-analystread 2026-10-13

CoModeler lays out a step by step build plan with annotations and dependencies and executes no change without the builder's explicit confirmation, though a builder who opens a prompt with Approve skips the plan and lets it build at once, and Anaplan steers CoModeler toward development environments.

Analyst writes back to a live plan only within the permissions the user already holds, and Anaplan Workflow routes submissions to assigned approvers with deadlines and notifications. Agent Studio keeps every agent inside the platform's existing roles, so an agent cannot reach data or actions its user could not.

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Agent writes land only in scenarios opened for AI write back or created by the AI, so the live budget stays untouched unless someone opens it, and each write carries the user's name and an AI flag. Writing through MCP needs its own permission, which only Finance or Admin users can hold, new workflows and tasks arrive as drafts with no assignee, and a publish can be undone. Data Manager agents score each proposed mapping or bulk change by confidence, and the team approves it before anything lands.

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Anaplan holds SOC 1 Type 2 and SOC 2 Type 2 reports and ISO/IEC 27001, 27017, 27018, 27701 and, since September 2026, 42001 certificates, and its trust center adds CSA STAR Level 1, Cyber Essentials, ENS, TX-RAMP and TRUSTe.

Sign in runs through SAML 2.0 single sign on, with OAuth for APIs and integrations, role based access control, central identity management and IP allow lists, and only users with the AI Admin role can open Agent Studio. Data is encrypted at rest and in transit, a bring your own key add on puts the key in the customer's hands, and customer data, model structures and metadata never train a foundation model. Every agent and every AI Gateway request runs under the user's existing Anaplan permissions.

Sourcetrust.anaplan.comread 2026-10-13

Cube holds SOC 2 Type II and SOC 1 reports, the SOC 2 examined by Dansa D'Arata Soucia, and handles data to HIPAA requirements. Sign in runs through SAML or OIDC single sign on with Okta, Duo, Google or Microsoft Entra, which an admin can enforce, plus app or text based multifactor authentication. Role based access and each user's Data Access Scope reach down to the cell, the agents inherit the asker's permissions, and separate permissions govern Charlie, the Planner, MCP read, MCP write and AI administration, so AI can be switched on or off for each use through the same roles.

Sourcecubesoftware.com/securityread 2026-10-13

Workflow keeps timestamped audit trails and flow chart reports of tasks, approvals and progress, and the platform sends audit events to a customer's SIEM for alerting. Every change CoModeler makes lands in model history under the user who directed it, marked AI assisted, and Analyst and CoPlanner show the source data, model and timestamp behind each answer. AI Gateway records every tool call an outside assistant makes, with a timestamp and usage details, and throttles heavy use, and Agent Studio shows AI credits, interactions and usage per user.

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Every agent query, answer and publish is recorded with the user, the permission scope applied and the sources used, and denied actions are recorded too. The audit trail shows each data change with who made it, the event type, the number of values changed and the before and after figures, and change history marks which changes came from AI. Because answers open to the transactions behind each figure, a reviewer can see exactly what an agent relied on.

Sourcecubesoftware.com/securityread 2026-10-13

Anaplan runs as its own cloud service, with in country data centers that keep customer data local for residency rules, among them AWS hosted locations in Singapore and the UAE and data centers in Indonesia, India and Australia. The Singapore center keeps data inside Singapore for public sector and financial services clients. The platform is also sold through AWS Marketplace. There is no customer hosted or on premises edition.

Sourceanaplan.com/news/anaplan-launches-aws-data-center-in-singaporeread 2026-10-13

Cube runs as a hosted service on AWS, with all data and infrastructure in US based regions, and offers a data processing agreement for GDPR needs. A company that needs its financial data held in the EU or another country cannot get that, and there is no customer hosted edition.

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Prebuilt role based agents cover financial planning and consolidation, revenue performance management, supply chain planning and workforce planning, each embedded in the matching Anaplan application.

Agent Studio switches on ready Analyst configurations, Finance Analyst, Supply Chain Analyst, Sales Analyst and Workforce Analyst, for an application, and CoModeler and Workflow Agent arrive as ready agents for building models and processes.

Packaged applications such as Integrated Financial Planning, Demand Planning, Territory and Quota Planning and Operational Workforce Planning give each agent a ready model to work in.

Sourceanaplan.com/platform/intelligent-role-based-agentsread 2026-10-13

Four agent teams come with every plan. Data Managers handle mapping, bulk edits, connection setup and hierarchy upkeep, and Analysts bring slices, Smart Variance and Anomaly Detection. Planners carry the Planner Agent, Smart Forecaster and Formula Modeler, and Business Partners carry Visualization, Board Builder and Deck Builder. The Agent Exchange adds ready plays, such as a variance bridge to budget, a rolling forecast refresh, an investor update or a new entity mapping, which Charlie runs once the user fills in the bracketed inputs.

Sourcecubesoftware.com/ai-agentsread 2026-10-13

Anaplan pairs a language model's reasoning with its own deterministic calculation engine, so the arithmetic in an answer is computed by Anaplan, not by the model, which also keeps token use down. A customer has no say in which model runs the agents, and the provider is not named. The Claude, Gemini and Copilot connections through AI Gateway are outside assistants reading Anaplan data, not a choice of model for Anaplan's own agents.

Sourceanaplan.com/platform/agentic-enterpriseread 2026-10-13

Charlie and the agent teams run on language models from providers available through Amazon Bedrock, chosen by Cube, with Anthropic named among Cube's subprocessors since March 2026, and Cube trains no models of its own for these features. AI settings hold a company's standing instructions and nothing else, so a company cannot pick the model behind its agents. Outside assistants such as Claude or ChatGPT can work on Cube data through the MCP server, but those are the customer's own tools reading Cube.

Sourcesecurity.cubesoftware.com/faqread 2026-10-13

Transactional and bulk APIs extend the platform for integration work, with OAuth that a customer sets to its own authentication and access policies. AI Gateway adds a supported MCP interface with permissions, rate limits and audit, through which outside assistants and agents query planning data. Access through the gateway starts read only, so an outside agent can look up a forecast but cannot change a model, a formula or a plan through it.

Sourceanaplan.com/platform/data-management-and-integrationsread 2026-10-13

The Cube MCP Server, generally available on every plan with usage limits, signs users in with OAuth and offers a full tool set, from get_financial_slice_of_data and get_drilldown_data to publish_data, duplicate_scenario, create_dashboard, create_planning_table, create_workflow and initiate_import, so a team can point any agent framework at the governed model and write plans, Boards, Tables, scenarios and workflows back under the user's permissions. The Cube REST API has a public OpenAPI reference covering agent chat and Planner sessions, AI settings and credits, canvases, workflow runs and connection syncs, authenticates through OAuth with a PKCE flow, and is sold as an add on.

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CoModeler finds error prone formulas, redundant structures and slow spots in a customer's planning model, then documents each formula in plain language, and Workflow Agent studies how long tasks take to suggest a faster flow. Both of those check the customer's own model and process. A team has no way to test how an agent answers or acts before rolling it out to planners.

Sourceanaplan.com/platform/anaplan-comodelerread 2026-10-13

Before Charlie returns an answer it checks each figure against the source data, and every query, answer and AI write sits in the log for review afterward. The Planner, still in open beta, asks clarifying questions before it builds a scenario. Cube tested its own accuracy on its own books and does not warrant AI output, reminding users on every AI surface to check results. A finance team cannot run an agent against a set of known questions to see how it does before giving it to the wider team.

Sourcecubesoftware.com/ai-agentsread 2026-10-13

Everything the agents do happens inside Anaplan, through its models, workflows and data connections. Data from other systems arrives through Data Orchestrator, CloudWorks and the APIs, and none of the agents clicks through another application on a user's behalf.

Sourceanaplan.com/platform/agentic-enterpriseread 2026-10-13

The agents work through Cube's governed data layer, its source connections and the spreadsheet, Slack, Teams and MCP surfaces. None of them opens another application and clicks through it for a user.

Sourcecubesoftware.com/ai-agentsread 2026-10-13