Artificial intelligence’s perceived impact on a CFO’s role varies at the moment. While the excitement is largely universal, the costs and challenges associated with implementing this new technology at scale, combined with cybersecurity ramifications, have pushed some finance leaders away from betting their entire financial operations on AI.
However, larger companies with greater resources are significantly more likely to incorporate AI products into their tech stack compared to their smaller counterparts, according to the most recent data from Duke University and the Richmond Fed. While more than half (54%) of all CFOs said they plan to integrate AI-powered tools, more than three-quarters (76%) of CFOs from larger companies said the same, according to the survey’s Q2 results.
AI use right now
Regardless of whether the hype around AI is legitimate, its use case remains in the minority among all CFOs surveyed. Only 37% of CFOs reported using AI in the past 12 months to automate a task previously done by an employee.
However, the size and resources available to an organization significantly impact its ability to incorporate these types of tools. When broken down by size, more than half (55%) of large firms’ CFOs said they have used AI to automate human tasks in the past 12 months. Less than three in 10 (29%) of CFOs from smaller firms reported the same.
Automation and the U.S. election
A large majority (88%) of CFOs said their automation drivers were to enhance business processes and would not be impacted by the upcoming U.S. federal elections. Despite the political issues some companies are dealing with, over two-thirds (67%) said the upcoming elections’ uncertainties had no impact on investment plans.
Other areas automation drives improvement includes increased output quality (58%), reduced labor costs (55%), increased output quantity (50%), and talent issues (32%).
Looking forward
While large firms are actively looking to implement AI, smaller ones are making plans to do so at a much slower rate. Less than half (44%) said they plan to utilize AI tools to automate human tasks within the next 12 months.
There also seems to be some uncertainty or hesitancy among smaller firms, presumably due to both cost and risk, leading to delays in implementation. Nearly a quarter (24%) said they weren’t sure if they would be able to automate human tasks with AI over a twelve-month period.
The quarterly CFO survey, conducted by the Duke University Fuqua School of Business and the Federal Reserve Banks of Richmond and Atlanta, questioned about 450 financial executives from May 13 to June 3.