However, recently artificial intelligence in finance has become a bit louder. While reading an overview of how finance leaders experienced unexpected urgency, they came across an article on how finance leaders are implementing automation and analytics CFOs report that AI is transforming finance while strategy leads.
I was struck by how consistently CFOs emphasized what most Americans don't fully understand: AI is not magic. It's only worth it if the company knows why it wants to use it in the first place.
What's interesting is how uneven this change has been. Some teams have even started using predictive models to change the way they think about cash flow cycles and scenario planning, discussing decade-old concepts found in research on how today's financial groups are challenging outdated backward-looking metrics with forward-looking insight. discussion of the importance of artificial intelligence for experiments in financial departments.
Others, however, still struggle with clunky spreadsheets and legacy systems that simply won't die.
It's divided strangely, with half the team getting carried away with autonomous prophecies and the other half struggling with old macros.
One statement that got me thinking was a more fundamental consideration of how finance roles change as AI takes over responsibility for repetitive work – an area also covered in the talk on how modern finance teams will need analytical and interpretive skills more than ever.
It made me think about whether we are prepared to change the way we think. Numbers have always mattered, but now the story behind them matters more this time, and it's a completely different force.
Another theme in all of this is trust. There is also an ongoing debate about how much responsibility AI systems should have for making recommendations to businesses (a concern recently raised in a major analysis of what it means for financial advice to be automated but human-supervised, such as a viewpoint on scaling AI-powered advice without compromising user trust).
Truth be told, this is my concern – speed is good as long as it doesn't short circuit.
From my perspective, this seems to be a time when financial leaders are trying to race two races at once: upgrading the engine while driving the car.
And if I were to give my view, it would be this: AI in finance will be amazing when companies stop treating it like a shiny thing and start treating it as part of their strategic backbone.
Until then, we will continue to see flashes of brilliance interspersed with growing pains.
