KPMG Survey: Finance leaders race to scale AI, igniting a critical need for specialized talent and trust

New York, May 11, 2026 – Two years ago, finance leaders were focused on piloting AI. Today, they are in a full-scale race to deploy and orchestrate complex AI systems across the enterprise, marking a strategic shift that is reshaping the profession.

According to a new report released today by KPMG LLP, the US audit, tax, and advisory firm, in the next 18 months, 93% of US companies will be deploying or scaling AI in their finance functions, with half already planning to orchestrate or develop multi-agent AI systems across their workflows.

"The shift from adoption to orchestration proves that AI is no longer a future concept, but an operational reality,” said Christian Peo, KPMG US Vice Chair – Audit and Assurance. “This moves the goalposts for our profession. To maintain trust in the capital markets, the auditor of the future will have to both audit financial statements and provide assurance over the AI systems that help produce them."

The report, AI in Finance: The Decision Advantage, which resulted from a global survey of 1,013 senior finance leaders across 20 countries and 13 sectors, including 163 US finance leaders, builds on research conducted in 2024, which found that almost one-third of companies were planning to increase AI budgets or shift funds from other activities to drive AI adoption.

The human element is key to unlocking value

The survey finds that for a majority of companies, AI initiatives are already paying off, with nearly three-quarters reporting that the ROI is meeting (46%) or exceeding (28%) their expectations. Among those unsatisfied with ROI, the top barrier is slow organizational adoption and change management, proof that AI success depends as much on managing people as it does on managing technology.

This challenge is reflected in workforce training. For leaders trying to institute a better understanding of AI in day-to-day work, the main obstacles are a lack of clear, role-specific use cases (64%) and hands-on practice environments (61%). This highlights that a significant and targeted investment in practical, hands-on training is key to enabling a successful AI transformation.

"The ultimate goal is not just automation, it’s elevation,” said Thomas Mackenzie, KPMG US and Global Audit Chief Digital Officer. “Leaders are harnessing sophisticated AI to create a finance function that is predictive instead of reactive. This is the core of our 'human-led, agent-operated’ vision, where technology provides deep insights, freeing professionals to apply critical judgment and become true strategic partners to the business.”

The push for AI sophistication

The survey reveals that the greatest opportunity for finance functions to get more value from AI is in generating faster, predictive insights for decision-making (45%). This push for sophistication extends to the next wave of AI capabilities, with a quarter of companies (26%) evaluating emerging techniques like 'vibe coding,’ or using AI to turn natural language into code, and nearly half (47%) already piloting or actively using it.

“We're seeing AI democratize technology development, allowing domain experts to build their own solutions,” said Brad Brown, KPMG US and Global Chief Digital Officer, Tax. “In a recent pilot, our Tax professionals, with limited tech backgrounds, vibe coded working software prototypes in a matter of weeks. This is a gamechanger for agility, allowing us to create and scale highly specialized solutions on our KPMG Digital Gateway platform faster than ever before.”

AI assurance as the prerequisite for innovation

As companies embed AI, their top concerns are shifting to cyber and AI-native security threats (50%) and the accuracy of AI-generated financial outputs (48%). With nearly half of leaders focused on the integrity of these outputs, the role of independent assurance in validating data and model reliability has become mission critical. Rather than viewing it merely as a defensive response to risk, organizations are turning to assurance as the key to unlocking innovation responsibly.

“The risks created by sophisticated AI demand a new playbook. A cyber threat to an AI system is now a direct threat to the accuracy and completeness of the financial information it produces,” said Matt Johnson, KPMG US AI Audit and Assurance Leader. “Independent assurance is therefore increasingly critical and complex, as it must now provide objective validation over the entire AI ecosystem—from its cyber resilience to the integrity of the insights it generates.”

An overwhelming 94% of organizations are already relying on third-party assurance providers, transforming assurance from a simple risk mitigation tactic into a fundamental prerequisite for innovation and speed. This independent validation provides the confidence leaders need to rapidly deploy complex, multi-agent AI systems. Specifically, leaders find this specialized assurance most valuable for preparing for challenges around data security and privacy (60%), ensuring the performance and reliability of AI models (56%), and navigating the rapidly evolving regulatory and compliance landscape (53%).

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