The office of the CFO is going through a new phase of transformation driven by artificial intelligence (AI). AI impacts how finance teams complete daily tasks and operations, and it has the potential to do much more. From automating repetitive tasks to uncovering hidden patterns in data and surfacing insights, AI has the potential to streamline operations, optimise workflows and improve decision-making.
AI uses a combination of techniques, such as machine learning algorithms, natural language processing (NLP), deep learning and generative AI to automate time-consuming tasks to improve accuracy of financial data and provide valuable insights to make smarter financial decisions. Given these applications, many finance teams may already be using AI within their systems and processes without even realising it.
Putting AI to use
With the understanding of how different AI technologies work in finance, there are a few use cases that come to mind. AI is commonly used to automate tasks like data entry, expense report processing and invoice processing with the goal of freeing up resources. Additionally, finance leaders use AI for data analytics, revenue and predictive forecasting, decision-making to identify missed trends and patterns, as well as being trained to detect fraudulent activities and simplify regulatory compliance.
In its second annual Strategic CFO Survey, spend management software company Coupa interviewed 500 CFOs across North America and Europe to understand how finance leaders are currently using AI and how they’ll invest in AI in the future. According to the survey, 100 per cent of finance leaders reported that they’re already using AI to cut costs and increase productivity across different business areas, with nearly half (45 per cent) planning to invest in AI to drive growth. Finance leaders (31 per cent) reported that they’re currently using AI in AP automation, followed by 29 per cent who are using AI in procurement, with 28 per cent of CFOs leveraging AI in cash and liquidity management. By 2025, finance leaders plan to make the most AI investments in the AP automation (34 per cent), followed by procurement (31 per cent) and third-party risk management (29 per cent).