CFOs are shifting gears: AI is now a boardroom priority
When the tech industry turned the page on a new decade five years ago, only 3 per cent of CFOs were using artificial intelligence in an aggressive approach. This, compared to 70 per cent opting for more conservative adoption.
Now, according to a new report published by Salesforce, the number of CFOs taking an aggressive approach is up to 34 per cent today and will increase to 74 per cent by 2027.
Vala Afshar, Chief Digital Evangelist at Salesforce, says an "aggressive" approach can be defined by how much a company chooses to invest in AI as well as how much of a priority is put on using these technologies for business decisions.
"This is no longer an IT conversation. This is a boardroom conversation," says Afshar. "So if you're a CEO or CFO...when it comes to determining conservative versus aggressive approach, ultimately it's how much skin you have in the game, and ultimately, how much you're looking to invest towards this technology."
"When you look at [North America], 71 per cent of CFOs were cautious five years ago, and now it's only 8 per cent," adds Afshar.
Gartner's yearly top 10 list of the world's Strategic Technology Trends for 2025 listed agentic AI as the number one trend. "Autonomous AI can plan and take action to achieve goals set by the user," stated the report.
Marco Steecker, Senior Director, Research at Gartner, says AI has three tiers of operation with agentic logic. First, judgment-based activities ranging from back-office accounting to financial planning analysis. Second, compliance and risk support, such as making sure there are no fraudulent transactions or duplicate payments. Third, analytics and decision making.
AI is more of a co-worker than a tool, says Steecker. He describes it as a muscle that grows and adapts over time.
"A tool, is static. You use it to do a thing. Whereas AI is different, in that it actually learns and develops and can expand in its capabilities. So when we think about it as a co-worker, we think about not only using it to do an activity, but also teaching it and improving along the way so that it's actually a learning and growing part of our organisation," says Steecker
According to Salesforce data, AI is changing how top financial decision-makers are defining Return on Investment. While the term ROI is rooted in hard dollars returned to a company's bank account, AI is going from short-term cost-cutting to long-term business outcomes like revenue generation, productivity gains, and improved decision-making.
"When it comes to AI, there's a mixed bag," says Afshar. "For the CFO, specifically, almost eight out of 10 said they're starting to use AI to make business decisions...Agents are able to execute and are often referred to as 'Digital Labour.' That's one of the factors that were used to evaluate a return on investment was more expensive. So yes, dollars and cents cost savings, but also risk compliance improvements and also revenue growth."
Gartner reported that although there was an acceleration in AI adoption from 2023 to 2024, it has seen a slight deceleration from 2024 to this year.
"Over the past year, a lot of the sort of low hanging fruit in terms of AI use cases that could be implemented - things that are quick, easy to put in place, off the shelf, tools - there's been a lot of traction on those, but we are starting to hit a point where we are hitting barriers. The things that we're trying to execute with AI are becoming more complex and challenging," says Steecker.
Salesforce has published a decelerating projection as well - estimating that once aggressive AI strategies peak at 74 per cent in 2027, it will decrease to 65 per cent at the start of the new decade.
Afshar predicts that as people become more accustomed to AI in the everyday workforce, the strategies will shift, and what is now considered an aggressive, CFO-oriented strategy will evolve into normal operation. "When AI becomes electricity for your business, you don't continue to have a high sense of urgency. It becomes part of your everyday."