Chief financial officers and finance organisations are increasingly deploying artificial intelligence to enhance financial forecasting, scenario planning, and operational automation as global trade, monetary, and macroeconomic volatility reshape strategic agendas.
According to Protiviti’s 2026 Global Finance Trends Survey, titled Synchronize, 77% of finance organisations now employ AI within their operations, with financial forecasting surfacing as the primary application.
Adoption of AI for financial forecasting rose significantly from 58% to 76% year-on-year, enabling teams to evaluate larger datasets, execute scenario modelling, and deliver rapid strategic insights.
Despite widespread implementation, finance functions face considerable friction in demonstrating clear commercial value. Only 35% of respondents consider their organisations highly or moderately effective at measuring return on investment (ROI) from AI initiatives.
Furthermore, just 14% of finance departments deploy AI under a formal, defined strategy, indicating that most implementations remain unscaled and lack operational maturity.
Beyond forecasting, current applications remain concentrated in risk assessment and management (67%) and process automation (56%), while AI-driven scenario planning remains an underdeveloped mechanism to bridge forecasting with liquidity management.
“Finance leaders have moved beyond asking whether to adopt AI. Today’s challenge is to use AI to make more informed business decisions and prove that it is delivering measurable value,” said Christopher Wright, global leader of Protiviti’s CFO Solutions and Business Performance Improvement practice.
“Organisations that pair strong data governance with clear business objectives are better positioned to navigate economic uncertainty, shifting market conditions and rising expectations for finance transformation.” Christopher Wright
The expanding reliance on vast volumes of internal and third-party data has elevated data protection concerns. For the third consecutive year, data security and privacy ranked as the foremost operational priority for finance executives, outpacing financial planning, core analytics, and AI itself.
“AI is fundamentally changing how organisations use data,” Wright added. “Organisations cannot scale AI without confidence in the quality, security and governance of their data. That is the major reason why cybersecurity and data governance remain finance’s top priorities.”
Concurrently, economic uncertainty is reinforcing rigorous liquidity management. The survey revealed that 83% of CFOs identify cash management among their top three operational priorities, focusing on cash flow forecasting, working capital dashboards, and real-time liquidity reporting.
The sectors placing the highest emphasis on cash discipline comprise financial services (61%), manufacturing and distribution (55%), healthcare (45%), and consumer product companies (41%).
