CFOs are panicking about AI (silently)
CFOs who wait can become the back office again.
This week, I was in San Francisco, where I spoke in front of the top 100 CFOs in tech.
It was an invite-only CFO Summit hosted by Operators Guild.
One thing was clear: I felt the shift and it is real.
CFOs are excited on the surface. But behind the scenes, they’re unsure.
What if we get it wrong?
What if it replaces jobs?
What if we fall behind?
Some CFOs are testing AI in quiet pilots.
Most are watching from the sidelines. Piloting tools. Reading headlines. Maybe automating a report or two.
But while you wait, others are moving. Fast.
Nearly 70% of CFOs say AI is one of the most important technologies in their future finance strategy. Yet fewer than 1 in 5 are using it.
This gap is the new risk.
The CFOs who win won’t be the ones who understand AI.
They’ll be the ones who use it.
This letter is your action plan.
Read on.
5 AI Moves CFOs Can Make Before it’s Too late
1. Treat AI Like a Junior Hire
If you threw a new analyst into board prep without context, you'd expect errors.
AI is no different. It doesn't know your business. It hallucinates. It overconfidently gives wrong answers.
But with the right onboarding, it becomes a productivity engine.
Here’s how top CFOs train their AI analysts:
Assign ownership. One person is responsible for reviewing and improving outputs.
Set weekly check-ins. Errors become training data.
Create SOPs. Treat it like onboarding a real hire.
OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar uses ChatGPT to draft investor Q&A, merge data from systems, and write SQL, but her team always double-checks the output before sharing
Build an AI governance chart:
Who owns the model?
What gets reviewed?
What’s the approval flow?
Prompt
Act as my junior FP&A analyst. You’re reviewing this P&L from [company name or industry] for [Q1 2025]. Compare it to [Q1 2024 / Q4 2024]. Specify the timeframe and analyze it like you’re preparing for an exec meeting.
Give me 3 unexpected trends—not just what changed, but what’s surprising or counterintuitive.
Flag 1 potential risk that leadership should know now, before it shows up in future metrics.
Suggest 1 follow-up question I should ask the business.
Be concise, but analytical. Show me you understand the story behind the numbers—not just the numbers.
—
The more skeptical you are at the beginning, the more trust you'll build over time.
Great CFOs don’t blindly trust AI. They train it like a star intern.
(Make AI your partner.)
2. Stop vibe coding. Start Augmenting
The win isn’t eliminating heads. It’s elevating thinking.
Yes, AI can reconcile accounts, generate draft reports, and consolidate spending.
But that’s just automation. The real leverage is augmentation, turning every finance pro into a strategist.
How it works:
AI builds the forecast. Your team pressure-tests it.
AI finds anomalies. You decide what to investigate.
AI summarizes trends. You connect them to business impact.
Real examples:
IBM’s CFO uses AI to create 50 forecast scenarios in minutes. Her analysts then refine and recommend.
BBVA built an AI risk tool, not to replace the team, but to help them move faster and go deeper.
Prompt
Act as my FP&A analyst. I’ve uploaded 5 years of revenue data. Analyze it not just for trends but for overlooked opportunities.
What’s one non-obvious insight we’ve likely missed?
What strategic action would you recommend based on that?
How would you validate this insight with additional data?
Don’t summarize the past. Help me shape what we do next.
—
If you fully automate, you risk losing context.
If you augment, you elevate judgment.
3. Make AI Self-Service (Or Stay Slow Forever)
If a sales leader has to ask FP&A for basic answers, you're bottlenecking decisions.
With AI, every department can access real-time finance insight—without logging a ticket.
Imagine this: A GTM lead asks, "What’s our CAC in EMEA vs. North America?"
AI responds instantly. No, wait. No manual lookup. Just answers.
Morgan Stanley deployed GPT-4 internally so 98% of advisors could instantly access research. CFOs can do the same for budgets, margins, and planning.
How to build it:
Create a single source of truth (clean data).
Use GPT-style natural language tools (Power BI Copilot, Tableau GPT).
Add guardrails (permissions + audit logs).
Prompt
Set up a GPT assistant that answers financial questions from department leaders using this dataset [upload file].
Here’s what it needs to do:
Use the data to respond to real-world questions like:
What’s my department’s YTD spend vs. budget?
Why did our software expense spike last month?
Can I increase headcount by 2 FTEs and stay within budget?
Write in a clear, confident tone. No jargon, just answers.
Assume the user has limited finance knowledge.
Back every answer with a specific number or chart pulled from the file.
Flag anything unusual or worth attention.
You’re acting as a smart, responsive partner.
—
Self-service means fewer delays, faster insights, and smarter business units.
Stop answering questions and start driving strategy.
4. Close the Trust Gap
The biggest blocker to AI isn’t talent or budget.
It’s fear of being wrong.
AI can hallucinate. Your data might be messy. And no CFO wants to present numbers to the board they can’t fully defend.
So what do smart CFOs do?
Run AI outputs in parallel with traditional ones for 1–2 quarters.
Build audit trails: explainability, version control, source logs.
Use frameworks like COSO for AI risk.
Prompt
Act as a financial analyst reviewing this AI-generated forecast risk [paste output].
Explain why the model flagged it, in plain language
Identify the top 3 contributing drivers, ranked by impact
Include any assumptions or data points that likely influenced the model
Write it like you’re briefing a CFO who needs to decide what to do next
Keep it clear, specific, and focused on business impact. Define risk areas, assign controls, and validate.
—
People think avoiding AI avoids risk.
But the real risk is falling behind while others move faster, smarter, and with better insights.
5. Make Storytelling Your Superpower
AI can find trends. AI can write memos.
But AI can’t sell the strategy behind the numbers.
That’s still on you.
As analysis gets automated, influence becomes your edge.
Netflix CFO Spencer Neumann backed the pivot to ads by telling a growth story.
Cheaper plan = more signups
Ads = new revenue stream
Revenue grew 16% in Q4 2024
That’s not reporting. That’s driving the business.
Framework: Explore → Explain → Inspire
Explore the data (AI)
Explain the insight (you)
Inspire action (your story)
Prompt to try
If you can’t tell the story, AI won’t save you.
But if you can, AI will supercharge your message.
The Bottom Line
You don’t need a 5-year AI roadmap. You need a 5-day pilot.
CFOs who act now will:
Elevate their teams.
Influence the business.
Be seen as innovation leaders.
CFOs who wait will become the back office again.
So what do you do next?
Data Quality = Competitive Advantage (Fix legacy systems NOW)
Augmentation > Automation (Focus on judgment, not speed)
Governance = Trust (Implement version control & explainability)
This week:
Assign AI to one finance task.
Review it like a new hire.
Coach, edit, and improve.
This quarter:
Launch one self-service AI tool.
Run AI vs. manual forecasts in parallel.
Train one team on storytelling with data.
You don’t need to master AI. You need to lead with it.
The CFOs who figure that out won’t just automate. They’ll lead the future of finance.
And that's all for today.
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I’m Wouter Born. A CFOTech investor, advisor, and entrepreneur.
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