Dive Brief:

• When it comes to ranking the most valuable technologies aiding companies’ finance functions, finance leaders placed customer relationship management at the top, cloud ERP second, and analytics and business intelligence in third place, according to a survey by consulting firm Gartner. All three were expected to draw more investment over the next two years.
• In a separate ranking of the top 10 finance technologies that respondents expect to attract the “highest future investment,” it is the seemingly perennially buzzy generative artificial intelligence along with machine learning that were ranked first and second, respectively, with cloud ERP earning a spot on that list in third place. 
• Cloud ERP technologies that have already been adopted by many companies may draw some of the uptick in investment as companies update them with AI, Gartner said in a release. “New self-service AI and data analytics capabilities being rolled out by cloud ERP vendors are providing an incentive for finance functions to upgrade, so they can better provide insights to the business in real time and at scale,” Gartner said in a release. 

Dive Insight:

The findings come as the number of U.S. companies investing $10 million or more in artificial intelligence is expected to nearly double next year, even as many companies are jeopardizing its potential by failing to invest in needed infrastructure to support it, CFO Dive previously reported. 

CRM offerings are increasingly being used by CFOs to analyze sales forecasts using historical data to assess the likelihood of future sales being inked, according to Mike Helsel, senior director analyst at Gartner. “It’s where the customer master lives, which is critical to finance processes of collections, cash applications and credit among other finance functions. CRM was also among the highest in adoption/utilization,” Helsel said in an emailed response to questions. 

While AI is already often embedded in other applications, the race is on by companies to add more AI to existing offerings. For example, based on current trends and the survey results, by 2027 62% of ERP spend will be on ERP applications with GenAI capabilities, up from 14% in 2024.

The findings from the 2025 Finance Technology Bullseye report are based on responses provided in October from 383 finance executives that included CFOs as well as other finance technology experts, Gartner said.