As generative artificial intelligence solutions become more commonplace, CFOs are beginning to think differently about implementing them inside of their organizations and inside of the finance function itself.
Over the past year, finance leaders have become “well aware” of the potential of agentic AI solutions in particular — which is creating “a sense of urgency” when it comes to adoption, said Hari Sankar, group vice president at software provider Oracle.
Two years ago, when generative AI solutions were still a relative unknown, CFOs were taking a “trust but verify” approach to integrating such tools, Sankar previously told CFO Dive. Now, however, that approach is “yielding to a, ‘I need to act now” mindset, Sankar said in an interview.
Agentic AI checks and balances
As CFOs seek to navigate economic turmoil and changing business needs, they have continued to mull how AI could best benefit their organizations and members of the finance team.
“Many CFOs are starting to spend a significant chunk of their time looking to…‘what is the potential of AI?’” Sankar said. “Where can I invest in agents today so that I can get the benefits of automation?”
Agentic AI — tools which are crafted to take over tasks without the input of a human — have captured a widening amount of finance chiefs’ interest in recent months. Many companies, for that matter, have moved out of the “pilot,” or testing phase of such solutions, in favor of production, with about one-third of organizations stating they have moved to full-scale deployment of such tools, according to a recent KPMG survey.
As finance chiefs contemplate the integration of tools such as agentic AI, they need to be sure they are considering their long-term impact, especially as for some, the end goal of such tools is to have agentic AI performing tasks without human interaction, Sankar said.
“How can I provide a certain level of checks and balances to ensure that it is doing the right thing and that the numbers coming out of a task performed by agentic AI are as reliable as the numbers performed by my accountant, who’s been doing this for 10 years?” he said.
Finance chiefs are looking to find the right place for agentic AI solutions as spending on such tools continues to ramp up: according to a recent study by Big Four firm Ernst & Young, 35% of leaders anticipate their organizations will spend more than $10 million on such technologies in the next year, EY found. Nearly three-quarters of senior leaders also believe entire business units will be managed by agentic AI, according to the study.
That’s not to say agentic AI tools will entirely replace humans: “I don’t think CFOs are in a hurry to get rid of their people, and replace them with agents,” Sankar said, noting the more complex tasks and analysis will always have a human in the loop.
But, as the business grows, executives may not be meeting that growth with more headcount, because “these technologies have the potential to deliver a level of automation where you can do more with the existing people,” he said.
Achieving the accounting, tech skill balance
AI’s continued evolution is occurring at the same time as the role of the CFO continues to change, with CEOs leaning more and more heavily on their finance chiefs to drive strategy as well as keep the finance function running smoothly. The broadening of the finance chief role is “reflecting in their desire to make investments, their desire to sponsor projects, their desire to hire the right talent or train the existing talent, to become more AI savvy, to become more data savvy,” Sankar said.
It’s also contributing to a ripple effect throughout the finance department — controllers, for instance, are gaining responsibility not just for providing the numbers, but “responsibility to provide clean, consolidated, curated data to the rest of the business,” Sankar said. The financial planning and analysis team, meanwhile, is morphing into a group responsible for supporting “agile decision-making” throughout the organization.
As the finance function sees its roles and responsibilities continue to evolve, it will be critical to ensure members of the team have the right mix of both core accounting and finance as well as technical skills. Future financial professionals may not need to become data scientists or AI model experts, Sankar said, but they need to develop a “sufficient understanding of the technology” so they can properly utilize it to meet the changing needs of their role.
“There’ll be a balance between accounting domain knowledge and broader business knowledge and technical savvy,” Sankar said of how finance functions in the future will be structured.
