Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly impacting the world, especially in driving new productivity in the workplace. In fact, a PwC study found that productivity growth was five times higher in sectors where AI penetration was highest versus sectors lagging in AI adoption.

But this is just the beginning. AI will be revolutionary in every sense of the word. Finance leaders need to be “all over this.” Specifically for Finance, I predict that AI will be embraced widely. Why? Because AI will fully transform how financial processes are run.

We saw the “numbers” side of Finance (computation) solved decades ago when spreadsheets and relational databases made number crunching as easy as clicking a literal button. All the hype around AI right now centers on generative AI. The new value generative AI adds to existing computational capabilities is comprehension, which brings the ability to understand spoken instructions, analyze data with increasingly ‘smart’ comprehension, and return analysis along with natural language interpretation.

We humans have been integral in evaluating, validating, and understanding those numbers. AI and machine learning have taken on many of these heavy computation tasks and are better and faster at finding errors, summarizing massive amounts of data, and spotting hidden opportunities. Where the next level of value lies is with generative AI taking on the comprehension side and truly understanding and interpreting the data. But CFOs and finance leaders are often skeptical of AI — rightly so — and need to build trust before they invest heavily.

The AI hype is real, but the trust in it is still building

I believe this next phase of AI deserves the massive hype it has generated. A couple of years ago, it was mind-blowing to see the promise of AI in predicting equipment maintenance, intelligently segmenting customers, and automating routine tasks — all computation tasks. Gartner’s number-one AI trend for 2020 was hyper-automation. It feels quaint to look back at those now-commonplace predictions and realize how far AI has come in just a few years. AI has progressed so fast that your organization has likely already deployed AI “responsible use” policies or employee training to prevent misuse.

That last point underscores the feelings of risk and lack of trust that executives, especially CFOs, often have with AI. Vendors must demonstrate that they use AI responsibly, especially regarding proprietary information, customer data, copyrighted materials, and more. AI solutions must also be explainable and transparent, especially if organizations are expected to trust AI-driven forecasts, recommendations, and other outputs. It’s up to vendors to ensure that trust and explainability are built into AI tools.

You’re already having conversations with assistants on your smartphone. Soon, you might be having conversations with financial performance management solutions about next month’s forecast, asking how you can accelerate monthly close cycles, or simply letting it explain variances to audiences outside of finance.

There may be plenty of promise with AI, but executives are right to take it one step at a time — now is not the time to wait with AI, but rather deploy it methodically and in partnership with vendors they trust.

Finance has much to gain

As AI makes progress in the Office of the CFO, I’m hearing from finance leaders that some of their team members are afraid of AI, while the other half can’t wait to put it to use. That’s not too far off from what the research shows: slightly more than half of workers are “largely positive” about AI. However, about one-quarter of workers fear AI will make their jobs obsolete and 60% of workers who use AI are worried about its impact on their jobs. 

That’s understandable. Finance and accounting professionals shared similar fears back in the 80s when spreadsheets became popular.

But, in today’s workplace, everyone has to be a technologist to some degree, if you want to be successful. You don’t have to be a developer, but you do need to be familiar with current and coming technologies, including AI. The AI revolution is accelerating, and there is an opportunity for growth and learning. So, embrace it and build your skills.

Here are three areas where I see CFOs gaining the most value from AI and generative AI in the very near term:

1. Operational automation: AI will take automated tasks, such as generating a report, and string them together to automate entire processes. For example, you might ask your AI finance assistant to pull data from finance and human resources systems, generate a report showing total compensation by department, and create a scenario to increase overall headcount by 10% with the goal of maximizing profit growth.
2. Analytics and insights: AI will analyze data to find critical variances, potential opportunities, and possible errors while answering questions and presenting findings based on your spoken requests. Imagine getting an alert explaining that you’re over budget on headcount for the month and offering a dashboard to drill into the details.
3. Decision support: AI will recommend actions when you’re wavering from plan or off target on goals. For example, if you’re over budget on headcount, AI might recommend delaying planned hiring for departments that are ahead of goal attainment.

What’s next for CFOs and AI

I have the pleasure of talking with CFOs every week at Planful. They all ask about AI, and are rightfully excited about its promise, just as I am. Finance has much to gain from AI, and here’s what I recommend CFOs do to incorporate AI today with minimal risk:

1. Use AI to eliminate errors. Don’t let AI take a shot at correcting errors, but use it to highlight potential mistakes, outliers, and places where the numbers don’t make sense. Then, get a human to investigate those few dozen anomalies instead of poring over endless spreadsheet rows.
2. Use AI to accelerate your planning cycles. Leverage AI to analyze historical data so your planning and budgeting cycles can start with an accurate baseline. Give your team a jumpstart to ease their effort and validate their expectations.
3. Use AI to get comfortable with AI. AI will become more trustworthy for Finance in the very near future. Putting a trusted platform in place today that lets you deploy trusted AI in the future ensures you’re on the right track to take advantage of incremental innovations — AI and otherwise — as they arrive.

AI for Finance is inevitable

Finance will need humans in the decision-making loop for many years to come. I see AI as augmentation, not a replacement, for quite some time. You can trust AI today to speed up processes, automate mundane work, find errors in millions of records, and more. But, having it make critical decisions is not on the table for the near term.

I stand by my prediction that Finance will widely embrace AI. And when AI becomes trusted by CFOs, it will revolutionize how organizations approach financial performance management. Only CFOs who start leveraging AI today, step by step, will be positioned to capitalize on this transformation and be ahead of their competitors.