The future of AI in finance

At a recent session at the KPMG Ignition Center in Chicago, CFOs gained insights into the KPMG perspective on generative AI in finance and shared their current and future plans for the technology. It is clear that Generative AI represents a unique opportunity for finance leaders, with huge potential for bottom-line cost reduction, optimized efficiencies, and exponential top-line growth. Regarding the latter, generative AI can accelerate growth via faster innovation and investment allocations, improve profitability by transforming decision-making through collaborative intelligence, and increase productivity by shifting focus from routine tasks toward higher-value initiatives performed by knowledge workers. Near-term opportunities in finance include automated forecasting, anomaly detection, contract and claim management, integrated reporting, and underwriting.

There are several organizational imperatives that will need to be addressed to maximize the value derived from AI models:

1. Data consolidation and quality are key to gaining useful insights from the technology and to drilling down to the desired level of specificity
2. Upskilling and strategic hiring across the organization will be necessary to gain capabilities in data science, AI engineering, content creation, security and privacy, and more
3. Clear division and documentation of generative AI roles and responsibilities across finance, information technology, and strategy can enable immediate transformational opportunities across the front, middle, and back office.

• Governance – who will “own” generative AI?
• Controls – what are the safeguards that will be necessary? 
• Augmentation vs Automation – where must humans remain in the loop? 
• Defining needs by role and function 
• Building vs buying
• Quantity vs quality of outputs