Companies face rising pressure to show a return on investment when it comes to artificial intelligence software spending, which is projected by Gartner to surge to $297.9 billion by 2027, up from $124 billion in 2022.

This challenge makes the CFO and the chief revenue officer a crucial duo as organizations seek to launch AI-enabled products that create value not only for customers but also, eventually, for shareholders.

To truly move the needle, the product needs to solve an existing problem more efficiently; better yet, the product should solve a higher-order customer issue that the customer needs help solving. That may lead to a genuinely new revenue stream and, therefore, a series of new pricing, packaging, and competitive considerations — all areas where CFOs can add their unique and valuable cross-functional perspective.

With cost and ROI proving to be among the biggest roadblocks to building a successful AI strategy, companies will continue to struggle to meet their AI investment goals without alignment between the CFO and CRO. After all, adapting to platform shifts is a team sport, not an individual one.

Here are three ways that CFOs can bolster their relationship with the CRO to ensure that AI investments can generate revenue for the company:

• Build and maintain trust, no matter what: If the CFO and CRO don't trust each other, the CRO will not be able to create an effective go-to-market strategy. Common challenges surrounding trust arise when CFOs don’t offer transparency regarding the company's goals and CROs are unable or unwilling to tell the story through their lens. The issue of trust typically starts at the top, so nip it in the bud as soon as possible. As a CFO, join monthly calls with the rest of the team as a spectator — it shows interest and eagerness to learn their way. 
• Think of the CRO as your ‘eyes and ears’: Without the CRO, the CFO will no longer have the voices, anecdotes, hypotheses, and boots-on-the-ground contact — leaving the CFO with only data. While data can disprove a hypothesis, there always needs to be an emotional, customer-focused perspective that all decision-makers within the organization can viscerally connect to.
• Embrace your common goals: While there are obviously different roles, the CFO’s and CRO's responsibilities and worlds overlap when it comes to understanding the ideal customer profile, segmenting the customer base, and thoughtfully deploying go-to-market resources. The customer journey of each segment then determines the organizational team design and most other decisions in every function in the firm.

As CFOs remain at the forefront of this technological revolution, they must ensure the costs of AI tools —including workflows and data storage — stay manageable and that internal data privacy policies are followed.

CFOs must consider possible strategic and tactical benefits when investing in internal AI capabilities. Strategic benefits include understanding the impact of internal workflows on the customer life-cycle via sentiment analysis. Tactical benefits include optimizing customer support costs, customized content for customer outreach, streamlined legal procurement workflows and analysis and compliance workflows.

Internally, the competitive advantage will come from using internal data for analysis and insights and, most importantly, from ensuring that the executive team, CFOs and CROs in particular, work as one on both the challenges and the opportunities presented by the generational platform shift.