The Future of Finance with AI
Webcast Summary
Finance is undergoing a fundamental shift driven by artificial intelligence (AI), data, and intelligent cloud capabilities. These advancements are enabling finance to become a strategic growth engine for the enterprise by unlocking unprecedented automation, analytics, and value creation. Realizing this potential requires a bold vision, leveraging data as a strategic asset, and investing in the skills of finance professionals for the future.
The webcast highlighted how finance can leverage AI, data, and cloud technologies to drive enterprise value and performance in the future.
Panelists discussed the following topics:
AI transforms the future of finance
The AI race in finance is on. Enterprises have invested heavily in the front and middle office, and these investments have exceeded return on investment expectations. Companies have transformed supply chains, personalized customer experiences, and unlocked operational efficiencies. Now, advancements in tech, data infrastructures, and AI are reshaping next-gen finance.
- Over the next three to five years, finance will drive enterprise performance. Finance professionals will focus on storytelling and collaborating with business partners to achieve outcomes.
- The boundaries of finance need to be reimagined as significant automation is being driven through core platforms. The rise of AI agents, especially function-based agents within finance, will enhance automation.
- In the future, finance professionals will receive automatic insights into supply chain disruptions and cash flow impacts. AI agents will detect anomalies and flag exceptions in real-time. Dynamic forecasting cycles will integrate macro and microeconomic data and industry-specific signals to provide projections and recommended actions.
- The future of finance will embrace a culture of innovation, with digital embedded in its DNA. Organizations will value intellectual curiosity and agility. An obsession with data and understanding data lineage will be crucial for problem-solving and achieving outcomes.
Leveraging data as a strategic asset
Building a strong data foundation is crucial for organizations to leverage data as a strategic asset. Many companies face data challenges and complexities, with data analysis often seen as a chore involving stitching together information from various sources. Unlocking the power of data requires a different approach.
- Understand the information needed to plan and manage the business. Track data lineage to see where information is created, modified, and consumed. Maintain a comprehensive data catalog and assign business owners to different data elements. Finance acts as the enterprise data steward, assessing changes across hierarchies and understanding downstream impacts.
- Prioritize data initiatives based on specific outcomes, such as minimizing customer churn or driving incremental free cash flow. Use these objectives to guide the development of analytics, insights, and the connection of structured and unstructured data across platforms into business-ready data sets.
- Create business-ready data sets by combining information from various sources and domains to solve specific problems. Invest in a modern data platform with a layered architecture (e.g., bronze, silver, gold) to integrate, harmonize, and transform data into valuable business-ready sets.
- Shift finance analysts' focus from wrangling data to analyzing and generating insights. Use AI and machine learning to provide recommendations and personalized insights. Drive enterprise performance by linking commercial and operational data to financial objectives.
Scaling intelligent finance
Advancements in AI, automation and digital solutions are enabling finance organizations to completely digitize the entire finance value chain, from transaction processing and closing to planning and advising. Different finance activities lend themselves to different approaches - more transactional activities can be automated with rules-based processes, while strategic activities will see more AI augmentation.
Finance organizations must thoughtfully consider which intelligent capabilities to introduce based on the specific challenges and areas they are trying to address. Automation can be derived from core platforms, additional capabilities can be unlocked by integrating data sets in new ways, and significant value can be driven from the improved connectivity and user experiences.
By leveraging automation and AI, finance can evolve its services and do more with the same cost profile. Time spent on data wrangling and modeling can shift to generating insights and advising the business. Predictive analytics can progress to prescriptive recommendations, and more time can be dedicated to solutioning and innovation.
However, technology is only part of the equation. Finance needs to rethink the core competencies and skills needed in their workforce.
Evolving the finance operating model
AI, modern data platforms, and intelligent cloud solutions enable finance organizations to significantly evolve the types of services they deliver.
A comparison of the distribution of work in today's finance function versus the redistribution that occurs with the addition of automation, scale, AI, and digital solutions reveals significant changes. Finance organizations can accomplish more with the same cost profile.
The nature of the work shifts depending on the area. Time traditionally spent corralling data and building financial data models and plans is reduced, allowing more focus on using insights to advise the business strategically. The emphasis moves from predictive analytics to strategic advising. Additionally, there is an increased allocation of time and resources towards solutioning and innovations.
To enable this shift in work, finance organizations must focus on digital literacy, data modeling, and data science skills. Preparing for this change requires hiring, developing, and retaining top talent. Finance leaders must build new capabilities, moving from traditional bookkeeping skills to data literacy and AI fluency.
Embracing the digital transformation
As finance organizations embark on their digital transformation journeys, they must embrace a bold vision, leverage data as a strategic asset, and invest in their workforce's skills to drive enterprise value creation. By harnessing the power of AI, automation, and intelligent cloud capabilities, finance can redefine its role as a strategic business partner and growth engine for the organization.
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