CFOs are experimenting with AI use cases to free up capacity for business-critical work. Generative AI has the potential to transform the finance function. By taking on some of the more mundane tasks that can occupy a lot of time, generative AI tools can help free up capacity for more high-value strategic work. For chief financial officers, this could mean spending more time and energy on proactively advising the business on financial strategy as organizations around the world continue to weather ongoing geopolitical and financial uncertainty. CFOs can use large language models (LLMs) and generative AI tools to support everyday tasks like generating quarterly reports, communicating with investors, and formulating strategic summaries, says Andrew W. Lo, Charles E. and Susan T. Harris professor and director of the Laboratory for Financial Engineering at the MIT Sloan School of Management. "LLMs can't replace the CFO by any means, but they can take a lot of the drudgery out of the role by providing first drafts of documents that summarize key issues and outline strategic priorities."

The latest Deloitte UK CFO survey, for the third quarter of 2022, demonstrates just how badly external economic factors are impacting businesses. Some 91% of CFOs expect operating margins to decline over the next 12 months, and cost reduction and cash control are now their top priorities. Faced with these challenges, finance departments need to shift away from dealing with basic accountancy tasks, and instead become more strategic, identifying ways to add value to the business to ensure survival through the economic crisis. One of the best ways to achieve this is with technology that helps CFOs not only predict, forecast and plan, but also apply automation to reduce manual finance tasks. Through its enterprise performance management (EPM) and analytics technology, Oracle offers capabilities around planning, budgeting, forecasting and reporting, as well as risk management and automation.

CFO Journal talked to Kristin Reinke, vice president and head of finance at Google, about those new technologies and how they accelerate the quarterly close, the use of spreadsheets in finance and the things that cannot be automated. This is the fourth part of a series that focuses on how chief financial officers and other executives digitize their finance operations. WSJ: What are the core parts of your digitization strategy? Kristin Reinke: We try to focus on the most important things: Automation and [how] we can improve our processes, being better partners to the business and then [reinvesting] the time we save into the next business challenge. WSJ: Which tools are you using?

Sixty-nine percent of board directors say that the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic are accelerating their digital business initiatives. The challenge for CFOs is how to fund digitalization and growth while maintaining control over their organization's finances -- even when operating conditions remain highly volatile. This dual mandate for 2021 is clear in the priorities cited by CFOs, controllers, and heads of financial planning and analysis (FP&A) in Gartner year-end surveys. Finance leaders also noted that many of their priorities for 2021 will be time-consuming, and few will be easy to accomplish. "CFOs have been asking more and more about artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, robotics and advanced analytics," says Alex Bant, Chief of Research, Finance, Gartner. "2021 is the year to pivot from discussions about the future to making real investments, seeing short-term wins and cost off-set, and having a clear plan for the future."

February 25, 2021 / By Catie Grasso - Dataiku -- When choosing a data science use case, it's important to identify the potential business value (i.e., who will the project benefit, how will it change their current processes and habits), the level of necessary effort, and the likelihood of success (how much risk is involved). No matter the industry, often a great place to start for AI use cases is the office of finance within an organization, as the teams within that group work with a significant amount of data and do a lot of spreadsheet-based work. In this article, we'll summarize why the office of finance (notably the tax, audit, and finance functions) are primed for AI transformation, as well as ways Dataiku can help bring them up to speed for a modern analytics strategy. According to Deloitte, "We observe many isolated data silos within the office of finance, leading to various reconciliations, highly intense manual labor work, and an immense amount of data quality issues. A data-driven finance function recognizes the full potential of granular data, managing data as a strategic asset."

Who makes decisions within organizations about investments in artificial intelligence tools? We contend that while CFOs may not think of themselves as leaders of artificial intelligence for their companies, they can make a bigger leadership impact when it comes to AI strategy and adoption. Get monthly email updates on how artificial intelligence and big data are affecting the development and execution of strategy in organizations. There are two key reasons. The first is that CFOs are heads of the finance function, and many finance processes and tasks can be performed by AI.

MORE than half of the 11 finance roles picked for a study will be moderately to highly changed by technology in the next three to five years. Those in the two most junior roles will likely be taken over by machines, while the most senior roles will be least affected, a new study showed. The study, entitled "Redefining the Finance Function with Job Redesign", said the Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated the pace of digital transformation. Within the next three to five years, there could be a wider adoption of technological enablers such as robotic process automation (RPA), artificial intelligence (AI), advanced analytics/Big Data and blockchain. This shift will have a pronounced impact on the finance functions of 2025, according to the study, conducted by the Institute of Singapore Chartered Accountants (ISCA), Lee Kuan Yew Centre for Innovative Cities (LKYCIC) at the Singapore University of Technology and Design, and Ernst & Young Advisory Pte Ltd (EY).

Who makes decisions within organizations about investments in artificial intelligence tools? We contend that while CFOs may not think of themselves as leaders of artificial intelligence for their companies, they can make a bigger leadership impact when it comes to AI strategy and adoption. Get monthly email updates on how artificial intelligence and big data are affecting the development and execution of strategy in organizations. There are two key reasons. The first is that CFOs are heads of the finance function, and many finance processes and tasks can be performed by AI.

Airbus SE is using artificial intelligence to squeeze cost out of its finance function, an experiment launched in the aircraft maker's Americas division that could save the corporation millions of dollars annually if rolled out in other regions. It's one of the latest examples of how companies across sectors are digitizing operations to increase efficiency, reduce human error and free up employees for tasks that require more human judgment, such as strategic planning, analysis and audits. "Companies can now automate highly repetitive activity at a lower cost with a higher degree of accuracy," said David Axson, head of the CFO consulting practice at Accenture Strategy, a unit of consulting firm Accenture PLC. "This especially applies to high-volume-use cases like accounts payable." Less than half of companies' accounts-payable activity worldwide is currently automated, Accenture Strategy says.

Technology such as data analytics, artificial intelligence, machine learning, blockchain and robotic process automation will be playing a greater role in the accounting profession this year, according to a recent report from the Institute of Management Accountants. The report indicates that finance and accounting professionals are increasingly implementing big data in their business processes, and the pattern is likely to continue in the future. The IMA surveyed its members for the report and received 170 responses from CFOs and other management accountants. Many of the CFOs are predicting big changes for 2020 in their businesses. "Four key elements must be present for organizations looking to become data-driven: data-savvy people, quality data, state-of-the-art tools and a supportive organizational culture," according to the report.