CFO's 7-step AI strategy plan
After studying real CFO implementations, one pattern is clear.
Most CFOs think about AI like it’s a software purchase.
Which pilot?
Which chatbot?
Which vendor?
Which dashboard?
That mindset is exactly why 95% of AI projects fail. Because AI is not a tool you add to finance. AI is a force that rearranges what finance is.
And if you’re a CFO in 2026, the only real question is will your finance function become a decision engine… or remain a reporting factory until it gets outpaced?
The 5% winning with AI aren’t the ones with the smartest models. They’re the ones who rebuilt finance around the idea of speed with trust.
Speed without trust is chaos.
Trust without speed is a slow crash.
AI gives you speed. But it also punishes weak foundations.
This is a practical AI strategy for CFOs who want to understand what finance must become next and how to get there without breaking controls, credibility, or their teams.
In the sections that follow (for paid readers), I’ll walk through the 7 steps CFOs must take to turn AI into real leverage and not a joke.
Each step builds on the last.
Get them right, and finance stops reporting the past and starts steering the business.
Let’s dive in.
Step 1: Fix What’s Broken First
AI doesn’t solve finance problems.
AI exposes them.
If your close is held together by heroics, AI won’t make it easy. It will surface every inconsistency you’ve been carrying quietly for years. If your KPI definitions change depending on who’s presenting, AI won’t add clarity. It will generate 10 confident answers… and none of them will match.
Here is the first truth CFOs must accept:
