How generative AI can help finance and accounting professionals

Whether you’re a CFO, an accountant, a financial analyst or a business partner, artificial intelligence (AI) can help improve your finance strategy, uplift productivity and accelerate business outcomes. Though it may feel futuristic, advancements such as generative AI and conversational AI technology can benefit Finance & Accounting (F&A) now.

AI technology enables finance professionals to focus on higher-value activities, such as strategic planning and analysis, instead of manual and transactional activities. Generative AI empowers faster and better data-driven decisions based on historical data, market trends and the use of AI foundation models that identify patterns and anomalies often missed by traditional analysis methods. 

We tapped into the minds of our very own F&A experts at IBM Consulting — the ones that know that how you help businesses make data-driven decisions indicates your ability to support future business. Our experts at IBM Consulting are taking a comprehensive look at generative AI for F&A and considering the need to balance risks (link resides outside ibm.com). We realize that outcomes will depend on how these models are trained (by F&A professionals together with their peers in information technology), and that some models may not be able to understand the context of certain F&A concepts, which could lead to inaccurate or misleading results. 

A recent report published by IBM’s Institute for Business Value (IBV) specifies key actions in response to one of seven bets proposed. One action is implementing secure, AI-first intelligent workflows to run your enterprise. The paper, which touches on the idea that tech-led disruptions are accelerating (and that this is driven by generative AI), recommends that organizations implement these AI-driven workflows while ensuring that their AI training is transparent and open to continual critique. It suggests that organizations prioritize which F&A use cases should be augmented with their new foundation models, balancing across precision, risk, F&A stakeholder expectations and return on investment (ROI).

The promise of generative AI in F&A is grand, as indicated in a recent IBM study that found that executives expect that 48% of the staff across their organizations (including 34% of finance staff) will use generative AI to augment their daily tasks in the next year.

Our experts encourage F&A decision makers to keep these considerations in mind when applying this new technology:

• Be good stewards of these financial insights. Stay connected as generative AI models start to participate in the process, summarize and create narratives around financial performance. Human accountability will become increasingly critical, especially considering the pace at which the tech will be deployed by some F&A teams (either as one-off models or embedded into day-to-day financial applications). A human layer of validation and a final sign-off on every transaction or report generated will be key. Consider how you will answer questions your stakeholders might ask about AI-generated content.

• Apply the controllership lens. Risk management and controls are an imperative in F&A. While the precision of these solutions continues to improve, it will be critical that operators keep applying the controllership lens to every use case under evaluation. They should weigh risks, materiality and potential financial exposure that could impact their processes. Operators should observe and validate accuracy and completeness for the inputs used, as well as for the outputs generated. As with most emerging tech, consider mapping use cases against your key control matrices to anticipate its impact.

• Internal business partnering is a necessity. Analysis and reporting will be one of the most impacted areas, and the level of self-serve solutions will sky-rocket across enterprises. This may tempt some business leaders to rely solely on new and seemingly smart AI-powered advisors to make decisions (and some will bypass the F&A layer or assume the information provided has already been “vetted” by Finance). It can be difficult to generate alliances between Finance and other business units, so consider which internal stakeholders will be impacted, and plan to advance trust and internal business partnering from the beginning.

IBM Consulting’s F&A practitioners can partner with you as you roll out this technology, sharing valuable insights and best practices along the way. In 2023 alone, IBM Consulting has interacted with more than 100 clients and completed dozens of engagements infusing generative AI alongside classical machine learning AI strategies. Explore more posts in this blog series, The Future of Finance with Generative AI, to learn more about how to streamline and enhance critical F&A functions and improve your finance operation’s efficiency with generative AI.