Since its emergence as a commercial product in late 2022, generative AI has quickly evolved from a futuristic curiosity to a valuable business tool and catalyst for re-imagining how to improve operations. According to an October 2023 KPMG Survey of corporate leaders in finance roles, nearly half have already deployed or are piloting generative AI while 37 percent are in the research and planning phase.
There are multiple factors that make finance an ideal candidate to lead the enterprise’s adoption of generative AI. For instance, 65 percent of finance leaders already use traditional AI for the financial reporting function, which demonstrates an early embrace of new technologies. Additionally, many finance activities align with early generative AI use cases, such as producing financial reports, and analyzing data to identify developing best practices for governance and partnerships.
The CFO can play at least three pivotal roles to ensure success with generative AI. They should be the lead architect an enterprise-wide AI transformation, co-sharing key aspects of the overall transformation to maximize ROI. Additionally, they should accelerate the finance function’s transformation by spearheading the adoption of generative AI within their own function, And finally, they can manage stakeholder confidence, proactively, communicating facts and trends to the CXO, board, and investors.
