News

Artificial intelligence (AI) wasted no time making its mark on the finance profession, with droves of leaders and teams embracing the new technology – albeit amid pockets of uncertainty and resistance.

Concerns around trust and accuracy remain. However, it’s those FDs and CFOs who have found, and are continuing to find, ways to utilise AI that are setting them apart.

There remains a fine line though.

Welcoming new methods of working into the finance function is one thing, but knowing how to get the most out of it is another. Two CFOs may well be getting vastly different results from the same piece of software.

So where can those gains be made? How can AI actually allow finance leaders to do their jobs better? What are the wrong, or at least, less effective ways to use it?

With entries now open for the Accounting Excellence Awards 2026 – with categories including the newly launched Finance Digital Transformation Award – it’ll be those with the answers to those questions who, come 29 September at The Roundhouse, London, will be competing for the grand prize.

To enter, click here.

Finding the value

At last month’s Finance, Accounting & Bookkeeping Show (FAB), AI was one of the hottest topics at the NEC, Birmingham, and was at the heart of Automation & AI: The CFO’s Efficiency Revolution - a session which saw Tom Herbert, Bob Horgan, Dhosjan Greenaway-Dalini and Simon Ratcliffe discussed the practical adoption of AI by finance leaders, as well as where to start and what to standardise.

There are gains to be made across the day-to-day of a CFO, but of course, that’s only if you know where to look.

Driving both value and strategy sits right at the heart of where finance leaders are reaping the benefits of AI, with Greenaway-Dalini, founder of Bia Innovate and a fractional CFO, telling the crowd: “We're all here in business to make money.”

“You want to grow your customer base, you want to grow revenue, you want to optimise your operations to make money,” she said. “So this is just another in a long list of innovations to help you do that.”

Greenaway-Dalini’s approach with AI was likened to that of taking on junior staff.

“You hire people to help in your team, and you train them up. You make sure they’re trained properly and have the right context, the right background, and you check their work, which is a big thing for me.

“So how can this junior staff member – these tools available to my disposal – help me get to my KPIs, my targets, my metrics? That's a mindset – how am I going to grow? And given the world economy at the moment and how volatile it is, I think we all need to be more entrepreneurial and find ways to survive and grow.”

When used appropriately, AI and automation can “get us there quite a lot faster”, believes Greenaway-Dalini, who is using AI to “build full-blown apps and dashboards for internal use”.

“Ask it to prepare your presentation for your next board meeting. Ask it to help you negotiate your next contract discussion with a customer – things where you know what it should be, so you can test it. Once you get down that rabbit hole, you start doing a lot more.”

Automating the right way

For Ratcliffe, a former CFO who now works as a fractional chief information officer (CIO), the reality is that “most people” use AI and automation the wrong way.

His suggestion was that instead of finance leaders themselves figuring out how to automate a function, the best use of AI is to instead “get it to answer the question for you”.

“It's about trying to turn this around the other way,” said Ratcliffe. “People don't use AI quickly enough. Trust me, I doubt anybody here knows every bit of every process because there are things going on that nobody knows about. AI can find that.

“So I would say the best use of you freeing up the time is to ask the question about how to free up the time in the first place, and then listen to the answer.”

It’s a point that transitions into FD at Central Technology, Horgan's belief that a chunk of the real-term savings being seen by finance teams is largely around “getting rid of some of the smaller, more menial tasks”.

“AP automation is where we're saving time, which allows us, in theory, to free up time to do the sexier part of finance; the business partnering, the so what, the what ifs, the getting in the business,” he said. “That's where AI is helping us.

“Just have a go with it. Start small. Yes, you can start talking about agentic AI solutions, but if you're not using it in any way, shape or form, try it with something small.”

As Horgan says, by removing or accelerating the routine parts of their jobs, finance teams are finding themselves with time to divert their attention elsewhere. With the remit of the FD or CFO continuing to grow, the value of such a luxury can't be overstated.

Insights and leadership

One of the more notable gains being made by finance teams is speed, specifically, said Greenaway-Dalini, it “allows me to get actual, real insights” much quicker.

“I advise AI and finance start-ups, and I build tools for internal and external use in AI as well. The speed at which I could do scenario analysis is minutes as opposed to weeks and weeks and weeks,” she added.

Greenaway-Dalini noted that with decisions being made at pace, the inevitable impact can then come much sooner, with time also being freed up to spend elsewhere in the business.

Again, it comes back to knowing how to find that time, with the FAB panel inevitably discussing whether businesses need a chief AI officer to lead that charge.

“No, I don't think it's a job, to be honest with you,” stressed Ratcliffe. “I think it's a title that's been created for no good reason.

“If you look at most companies now, and of course, I'm going to say this as a CIO, but a CIO will have that broad remit. They will understand that from a technology point of view, because they also understand the business. The CFO will also understand the business and its processes.

“It's about marrying those two up and everybody identifying exactly what we said: the business problem.”

Greenaway-Dalini added that governance sits at the heart of the chief AI officer debate.

“I think you just need somebody, and in my experience, it tends to be the finance director, CFO or finance leader profile that's making sure that while we're trying to improve things and create efficiency, the appropriate gates and control and governance are in place.

“Maybe it’s because I'm very deep into AI in various shapes and forms, but I think everybody should be dabbling and experimenting.

“Everybody across the business should be getting upskilled in how AI could help them do their job faster or maybe even remove a part of their job so they can focus on the more exciting, value-add stuff.”

Enter the awards

While some uncertainty may well be lingering around AI, there are also those who are transforming their finance functions not only to improve their day-to-day, but also to free up time for them to make their mark on other parts of the business.

If you have a story to share of such a success, then the Accounting Excellence Awards 2026 is the perfect opportunity to tell it, especially with the launch of the new Finance Digital Transformation Award.

To enter the Accounting Excellence Awards 2026 and be in with a chance of being recognised on the most glamorous evening in the accounting calendar, click here.