2026 Report: AI in the CFO seat

‍_{This blog is taken from a section of our Finance Leaders in Tech Report 2026. To read the report in full, click here.}

AI is on the mind of Europe’s leading CFOs, with 46% stating AI adoption was very or extremely critical to their organisation. Digging deeper into the responses, it’s clear that this cohort is thinking about AI across three areas. The first is within their finance teams, secondly, across the broader business and lastly, embedding AI within their products and services to preserve and improve their competitive position.

AI within the finance team

Our survey shows that CFOs are optimistic about AI’s potential to complement their existing team and processes. While full adoption remains a longer-term goal, many see clear near-term benefits, including faster accounting cycles, sharper decision-making, and increased productivity from their team.

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Several CFOs noted that automation is already reducing manual work and freeing up capacity for more strategic activities such as forecasting, scenario planning, and business partnering.

From a people perspective, some CFOs highlighted how AI tools were useful for improving the skills and competencies of their existing team, enabling them to close capability gaps without the need for additional hiring. As the debate about AI replacing human employees persists across all industries, it’s interesting that this group of CFOs ranked “reduced headcount” as the least important area, demonstrating that they see AI as performance-enhancing rather than a replacement for employees in their finance team and beyond. Given the strategic reach of a CFO within an organisation, many tech employees might be relieved to read that this is the shared stance of many of the industry's leading CFOs.

As part of this survey, we shared 15 AI use cases within finance, borrowed from McKinsey's Gen AI: ‍A Guide for CFOs, and asked our respondents to rank them in order of relevance to them and their business.The results show that this group of CFOs identifies lower-value and highly scrutinised tasks as the most relevant AI candidates.A number of higher-value, more business-critical tasks and projects are considered less relevant. This may signal a lack of trust in the technology to perform such tasks, or potentially a lack of expertise in how to utilise it effectively in these areas.

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AI across the broader organisation

We explored the remit of our CFO respondents in an early section of this report, so it is unsurprising to see how many of our contributors are thinking about AI as a catalyst for wider organisational transformation. For many, it is prompting long-overdue reviews of legacy systems and data structures, creating a genuine opportunity to build more connected, data-driven businesses. Several spoke about how AI could help break down silos, bring transparency to performance, and enable faster, more collaborative decision-making.Many referenced how AI can bridge between finance, commercial, and customer-facing teams by finding new ways to share data and insight through connected systems. Still, CFOs remain pragmatic with general sentiment suggesting AI should enhance judgment, not replace it.

AI in products and services

Finally, many CFO contributors linked AI capability directly to competitive positioning in the market.As AI becomes embedded in products and services, finance leaders are assessing how these technologies can influence valuation and long-term growth potential. A recurring theme within our responses was that the development of a clear AI strategy is essential, not only to enhance commercial and operational performance, but also to signal innovation and resilience to investors. A number of CFOs highlighted an increased appetite for AI adoption at a board level, with strong signals from their investors that an AI strategy will be critical over the next few years.

AI implementation: potential vs pressure

Our responses show that AI and digital transformation are top of mind for CFOs in tech. 67% of contributors said they were very or extremely motivated to implement AI. However, only 50% said they feel well-equipped to identify opportunities and drive implementation.

This points to a widening gap between the appetite for AI adoption among finance leaders, and the practical skills and experience to deploy it effectively.

“AI is an incredibly promising technology, and what we’re seeing is that almost every company has suddenly become ‘AI-native’ overnight. For finance teams, this rapid shift often creates confusion as they navigate decisions about adoption. The leaders who succeed are those who not only understand how the technology works, but who also have clarity on the outcomes they want to achieve. When that happens, implementation becomes far more effective, and teams feel confident and empowered throughout the journey."
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Albert Malikov Founder and CEO of Stacks AI 

Anecdotally, founders, CEOs and hiring teams are starting to include AI capabilities in their job descriptions and requirements for new CFO roles but it’s a long way from being a non-negotiable skill set.

“AI as a skill set for a CFO is definitely more frequently referenced by clients, but we’ve not yet seen any need for formal assessments of these skills or expertise.In the earlier stages, when budgets are tighter, founders and their talent teams are often impressed by candidates who have this sort of experience, but we aren’t at the point where candidates are missing out on roles due to a shortage of practical AI skills. In my opinion, we are a while off AI experience being assessed in the same way that other technical finance skills might be during an interview process. But, there is definitely a shift starting and I wonder whether in 12 months, that might look a little different to today.”
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‍Rabia Elahi Search Partner at Altima

So how are CFOs going to effectively deploy AI to reap the benefits they have clearly identified? Our data suggests that generally, CFOs plan to utilise internal resources first before investing in additional team members or support from external specialists like consultants and agencies.

Based on our findings, it’s evident that CFOs are looking to bolster their internal AI capabilities, either by upskilling personally, leaning on other more technical teams in their organisation or hiring specifically for this skill set. This approach will likely increase the efficacy and protect the longevity of their AI strategy, without becoming overly reliant on external expertise, but, it may become challenging as organisations become more adventurous with their AI aspirations and implementation becomes more advanced.

Overall, the consensus is clear: CFOs see the benefit of AI across a plethora of areas, both within and outside of their finance teams, but do not view it as a way to reduce headcount. They are eager to implement, but currently lack the expertise needed to do so. We believe our data suggests the majority of CFOs surveyed are firmly within the exploration phase of AI, and are keen to explore internal capabilities before investing heavily in implementation and advanced capabilities, for now.

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‍_{This blog is taken from a section of our Finance Leaders in Tech Report 2026. To read the report in full, click here.}

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