In a survey two years ago, 57% of CFOs predicted that artificial intelligence would reduce roles in the finance function, including 18% who predicted that at least 3 in 10 roles would be eliminated by 2026.
In this year’s version of that survey, just 3% of CFOs and finance leaders reported actively reducing headcount where AI has replaced work in finance. Sixty percent said AI has enabled them to redeploy staff to higher-value work.
For 2026 CFO Sentiments: How AI Is Changing Finance Departments, software company Datarails surveyed 270 U.S. CFOs and finance leaders at organizations with 1,000-plus employees and annual revenue of $100 million or more.
Nine percent said they were freezing hiring but not reducing headcount because of AI advancements, and another 9% said it’s too early to make AI-related headcount decisions.
The companies considering cutting staff in favor of AI might consider another recent survey’s results. Nearly 1 in 5 (19%) U.S. adults polled by talent access company SHL reported being replaced by AI but later asked back by the same employer.
The emergence of “AI rebounding” highlights the risks of “making workforce decisions without a complete understanding of human capability,” an SHL report said.
The unsettled picture may be a result of this: More than three-quarters of finance leaders (76%) in this year’s Datarails survey said they are under high or very high pressure to fully implement AI, but only 7% said their finance function is fully ready to implement AI across all workflows.
Other highlights from the Datarails survey:
- Inability to audit or to explain how AI reached its output was the reason most commonly cited (75%) for hesitation to fully trust AI with mission-critical tasks, followed by concerns about accuracy and hallucinations (71%). As a result, 40% of the finance leaders said they spend more than one-quarter of their workday verifying or correcting finance AI outputs; 96% spend at least 10% of their time on those tasks.
- More than 4 in 5 leaders said they trust AI to draft emails and summarize meetings without human review, but less than half fully trusted it with nine other tasks, from handling month-end close responsibilities (4%) to creating PowerPoint presentations (46%).
- The number of CFOs in this year’s survey adding jobs as a result of AI is at 7%. Two years ago, 16% predicted that AI would increase roles by 2026.
— To comment on this article or to suggest an idea for another article, contact Bryan Strickland at Bryan.Strickland@aicpa-cima.com.