Don’t be late for the AI revolution: Why CFOs should act now
AI in finance is evolving incredibly quickly, to provide previously unimagined capabilities that are redefining the finance function.
Research from McKinsey published in November 2025 reveals that, across 2025, 44% of CFOs surveyed used generative AI for more than five applications.
This is a significant rise from just 7% the previous year.
Investment is following a similar trend: 65% of the CFOs surveyed plan to boost spending on AI tools, whereas only about 25% reported this intention two years earlier.
AI evolution: From automation to assistants
AI has evolved from early rule-based automation—think invoice capture and workflow routing—to what we have today, that builds upon the generative AI toolkit.
Agentic AI is a technology putting embedded, finance-trained assistants inside the ledger.
This shift matters: when AI is integrated directly into the system of record, it can orchestrate the entire record-to-report cycle—accelerating the close, assuring data quality continuously, and delivering insights in real time.
Today’s leading practices emphasise continuous accounting and assurance.
In Sage Intacct, the Sage Copilot digital assistant and highly-specialised AI agents can flag incomplete entries, unposted transactions, and unresolved approvals so nothing falls through the cracks. They can reconcile subledgers to the GL and explain variances, surfacing discrepancies early when they’re easiest to fix.
All of this means the close is shortened.
Redefining the CFO for the 21st century
With trusted data flowing, finance leaders can move beyond monthly retrospectives to always-on insight.
Three trends define the CFO today:
1. Automation everywhere: From AP to expense capture to time entry, AI reduces manual inputs and error risk while strengthening controls.
2. Forecasting and realtime planning: Integrated budgeting and scenario modelling replace spreadsheet sprawl, giving CFOs rapid, multi-entity visibility to steer the business.
3. Anomaly detection at source: Outlier detection in the GL and proactive variance analysis elevate data trust and audit readiness.
Why act now?
The GENCFO Tech 100 exists because finance leaders want trusted, community-endorsed solutions to accelerate digital transformation without the noise.
That’s exactly where embedded, finance-trained agentic AI delivers outsized ROI: it reclaims capacity, improves accuracy, and gets insights to the business faster—all within the finance platform CFOs already rely on.
The takeaway: move beyond pilots and point tools. Focus on embedded AI that supports your core workflows, builds data confidence, and puts your team on the front foot—every day.
Get the full playbook in Sage’s ebook, The evolution of AI in finance.
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