IBM Study: As AI Scales Enterprise-Wide, CFOs Play an Expanded Role in Transformation
Key Highlights
- ➤62% of CFOs report expanded enterprise technology or AI strategy leadership roles
- ➤AI-first CFO organizations achieved revenue growth rates 23% higher versus peers from 2022 to 2024
- ➤AI-first CFOs approve funding for new AI initiatives 15% faster than peers
- ➤Only 6% of CFOs say finance has reached transformation-ready status
- ➤By 2030, 56% expect greater responsibility designing financial and ethical AI guardrails
Expert Statements
James Kavanaugh, Chief Financial Officer of IBM
“Historically, the CFO was viewed as the guardian of stability, responsible for financial discipline and controllership of risk. Those responsibilities remain essential. But today, it's not enough for CFOs and their teams to simply evaluate decisions. They need to shape them from the start – connecting strategy to execution, insight to action, and technology to value creation.”
Koichi Takahashi, Member of the Board and Senior Executive Officer, CFO of Daikin Industries
“Going forward, we want to delegate generating forecasts to AI and shift human effort toward higher-level decision-making.”
Mitsuru Hashimoto, Executive Officer, Chief General Manager, Corporate Planning & Finance Center of Yamaha Motor Co., Ltd.
“If relevant data can be generated quickly and provide some indication of what lies ahead, we can make decisions proactively rather than reactively.”
Hisako Takada, Senior Executive Officer and CFO of Advantest
“Capital allocation should operate dynamically and be reviewed continuously as opportunities and conditions change.”
Lindsey Crossland, Group CFO of KPMG UK
“Given today's pace of change, you have to stay alive to new opportunities. So rather than commit all investments through the budget process, keep an element of funds ready to allocate to new initiatives as they take flight.”
Erika Taurel, CFO of Lummus Technology
“Finance needs to bring analytics and insights together to enable the business to make better decisions. And then we need to get out of the way and let the business do what it needs to do.”
IBM Study: As AI Scales Enterprise-Wide, CFOs Play an Expanded Role in Transformation PR Newswire
ARMONK, N.Y., Sept. 30, 2026 * Most CFOs report their role has expanded into enterprise technology or AI strategy leadership * By 2030, more than half of surveyed CFOs expect to help design financial and ethical guardrails for AI ARMONK, N.Y., Sept. 30, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- A new global study from the IBM (NYSE: IBM) Institute for Business Value finds that as AI becomes more integrated into enterprise operations and decision-making, CFOs are taking on a larger role in shaping enterprise priorities around AI, helping turn strategy into execution, and determining how investments and capital allocation support them.
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