The Future of Finance: Rethinking Everything in the Age of AI
Explore how finance leaders are reimagining operations with AI to automate work, redefine roles, and elevate enterprise decision-making.
The roadmap to an AI-powered finance model
AI is reshaping how finance works. Learn how this new model, with AI as its operating system, connects the entire organization and creates more value.
The next generation of finance
Finance has never been more essential—or more exposed. Demands keep rising, yet many organizations remain stuck chasing data, reconciling numbers, and struggling with systems that don’t connect. The cracks in the old model are widening—and adding one more tool won’t fix things.
What comes next will go far beyond the incremental changes of years past: The entire finance model will be reimagined. AI will become the operating system. Execution will be automated. Core functions will converge into connected enterprise capabilities. And human roles will shift upward to drive strategy, innovation, and decisions.
This is the next generation of finance: leaner organizations, expanding mandates, and systems designed for an AI-first world. Leaders who prepare now can seize the opportunity. Those who wait risk being left behind.
The launchpad to future-ready finance
Making the leap from an outdated finance model to an AI-first future won’t happen all at once. It takes a step-by-step approach that connects people, data, and systems into a more integrated way of working. We call this approach Intelligent Finance—an accessible, actionable starting point that helps organizations improve today’s operations while preparing for tomorrow’s shifts.
Intelligent Finance connects finance’s core functions—processing, close, and planning—by embedding AI and automation to streamline workflows. Its impact is built on three critical enablers:
Evolving roles and skills free finance teams to focus less on transactions and more on strategy and value creation.
Clean, trusted, and connected data unlocks the power of AI to deliver real-time insights for faster, sharper decision-making.
Modernized, integrated architectures replace silos and sprawl, creating the scale and agility needed for continuous change.
Three seismic shifts reshaping finance
Finance is being reimagined from the ground up. Three fundamental shifts are already in motion—and will shape the changes needed in the next few years:
- Reimagined organizations: Finance becomes leaner as a silo but larger in influence—embedded across the enterprise, integrated with business functions, and supported by AI agents that take on routine execution.
- Expanding remit: With data and AI operating at scale, finance’s role moves beyond look-back reporting to advising on enterprise-wide priorities—from pricing and supply chain to growth and innovation.
- Architecting AI at scale: Finance leaders guide AI-enabled operating systems across the organization, connecting ERPs, cloud platforms, and automation into a unified ecosystem that allows everyone to move faster.
These shifts represent a once-in-a-generation re-architecture of finance. The function will never look the same.
Dive into our thinking:
The roadmap to an AI-powered finance model
Explore how finance leaders are reimagining operations with AI to automate work, redefine roles, and elevate enterprise decision-making.
Download PDFThe future is knocking on your door
The next generation of finance is arriving faster than most leaders expect. AI is becoming the enterprise’s operating system, reshaping finance’s role and accelerating change across the organization. Waiting for perfect systems or steady ground is no longer an option.
To map out their journey, finance leaders should:
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These are the building blocks of a finance organization that will steadily become leaner in form, broader in influence, and inseparable from the enterprise it serves.
Let’s talk about what’s next
Intelligent Close is more than a process—it’s a catalyst. For accuracy. For agility. For performance. If you’re ready to move beyond incremental improvement and start building a finance function that’s future-ready, let’s talk.
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Meet our team
KPMG LLP helps finance leaders prepare for the future of finance—where AI is embedded at the core of how work gets done. Our AI-powered approach unites deep experience in finance operations, enterprise transformation, and next-generation technologies. From automating core processes to modernizing data foundations and deploying AI at scale, we help clients build a finance model that is faster, more agile, and ready for the changes ahead.. If you’re ready to shape the next generation of finance, we’re here to help. Let’s take the first step together.
