Dive Brief:

• Software provider Datarails announced the full roll out of FP&A Genius, a new artificial intelligence-powered financial planning and analysis tool for CFOs.

• Among other potential uses cases, the new offering is designed to enhance the speed of compiling financial analysis for business decisions, leveraging the same kind of machine-learning technology that’s behind Microsoft-backed Open AI’s ChatGPT tool, according to a Wednesday press release. The tool was introduced in beta form earlier this year, as previously reported by CFO Dive.

• “The exciting and rapid evolution of AI is freeing up time for finance professionals to focus on more complex analysis and strategic decision-making and make the story around the numbers far more compelling,” Datarails CEO Didi Gurfinkel said in the release.

Dive Insight:

ChatGPT — a form of so-called generative AI technology known for a wide range of capabilities from drafting reports to answering complex questions — has grabbed the world’s attention since its launch in November, prompting a rush among software vendors big and small to introduce new AI-powered software products into the market.

Proponents say ChatGPT and tools like it have the potential to significantly streamline workflows and boost companies’ productivity.

“Instead of a finance person chasing after data, pulling together charts to show what is going on, users can simply ask Genius a question and a few seconds later have an answer,” Sloane Kolt, head of Datarails Labs, said in an emailed response to questions from CFO Dive.

However, critics worry about potential risks associated with ChatGPT-like technology, such as the potential for security breaches that could expose sensitive business information. ChatGPT has also been known for “hallucinating,” or asserting incorrect facts as if they were true, at times.

“The team at Datarails has a high percentage of finance experts and ensuring ‘hallucinations’ aren't a part of the product is top of mind for us,” Kolt said.

“When companies access their data through Datarails, it is based on the company's data connected and synced with all disparate spreadsheets and sources of data in one place, rather than an LLM [large language model],” Kolt added.

Addressing potential data protection concerns, she said FP&A Genius has been vetted using the “SOC 2” cybersecurity industry standard.

A KPMG survey released in April found that 65% of executives expected generative AI to have a major impact on their organization in the next three to five years. However, nearly the same number (60%) said they were still a year or two away from implementing the technology due to hurdles such as cost, determining clear business cases, and hiring talent to support implementation.

In addition, cybersecurity and data privacy were top concerns for respondents, at 81% and 78% respectively.