tech
What building an AI-native finance function taught me
Five lessons for CFOs redesigning work around artificial intelligence.
TL;DR
- Broad AI access is crucial, paired with structured experimentation around real business problems to foster bottom-up innovation and top-down strategy alignment.
- Redesigning the full workflow from source data to decision, leveraging AI to automate analysis, coordination, and completion of tasks, improves speed and quality.
- Finance professionals are becoming builders, using AI tools to create custom dashboards and solutions that extend their expertise and reshape their roles.
- Pairing AI-driven speed with clear accountability and controls, including defining data access, actions, and approval requirements, builds confidence for faster progress.
- Measuring AI value requires a scorecard based on operating performance, assessing whether AI completes meaningful work, its cost, the quality of results, and its impact on speed and decision-making.