AI进入新阶段：CFOs收集有用情报

As AI enters a new phase,CFOs gather useful intelligence In a survey conducted forFinance Trends2026,357% of finance executives saythey are now among the top leadersinfluencing strategy development acrossthe organization. Driving an organization-wide initiative is likely a far cry from theirprevious role of approving AI spend.No longer a discretionary technologyproject, AI is now positioned as a corebudgetary allocation. The percentage oftech budgets allocated to AI is expected torise significantly over the next two years,from 8% to 13% on average.4Assuming a6% annual increase each year thereafter,organizations would see their digitalbudgets reach 32% of revenue by 2028.That’s 2.3 times this year’s level if growthremains steady.5 In this edition ofCFO Insights, we’ll examinesome of the challenges CFOs encounter asAI adoption ramps up to production-scaledeployment. What have CFOs learned sofar about managing costs, mitigating risks,and ensuring a return on AI investments? Now that artificial intelligence (AI) hasmade the leap from a futuristic capabilityto an operating reality, CFOs may make thedifference as to whether the technologystalls or scales. The companies that thrive will be thosethat go beyond merely doing more AI.They will be the ones that redesign theiroperating models to accelerate adoptionand focus on business partnering. Costs: The end of predictable IT bills Flash back to three years ago, andmany CFOs’ viewed AI as a concept in needof proof. In fact, nearly seven in ten CFOs(69%) in the Q3 2023CFO Signals™surveyindicated that their organizations werestill experimenting with Generative AI—or just reading about it.7 Deloitte’sTech Trends 2026report—the17th annual edition—describes leadingorganizations as “anchoring AI initiatives tomeasurable business outcomes, designingmodular architectures for flexibility,and redefining talent strategies aroundhuman-machine collaboration.”1Financeleaders are increasingly co-architectsof that organizational transformation,central to whatTech Trendsframes as a“triumvirate” leadership model. In sucha set-up, the chief information officerintegrates technology; the chief strategyofficer aligns it to corporate priorities; andthe CFO ensures the investment producesmeasurable return on investment (ROI).2 Cut to the Q4 2025 North AmericanCFO Signalssurvey and AI is no longermerely conceptual to CFOs. In that survey,87% say that AI will be extremely or veryimportant to their finance department’soperations in 2026.8 As investment in AI rises, finance leaderscome face-to-face with the difficulty ofcalculating ROI. Some of AI’s benefitscan be hard to measure—such asimproved vendor relations or strongercustomer ties6—while the technologyalso evolves at a speed which can outstripCFOs’ metrics. Capturing the precise valueof AI, apart from other organizationalchanges it requires, can be a struggle. In their role as capital allocators, manyCFOs need to manage the risks, balancingexuberance with internal controls andgovernance. Does this use case invoke thequestion of whether processes need to befundamentally re-imagined? Does the step As stewards for enterpriserisk management, CFOsneed to be thoughtfulabout investing in cyberdefense at a pace thatmatches the organization’score AI investments,neither lagging recklesslybehind nor expandingwithout discipline. if more efficient capital allocation is neededfor safeguards, as well as new governanceand controls. Risks: Cybersecurity is no longeradjacent to AI—it’s inside it If AI is changing how companies dobusiness, it’s also doing the same for badactors. The reality is, artificial intelligencemay make organizations more vulnerableto cyberattacks. The technology adds newsystems and additional data flows, thuswidening attack surfaces beyond traditionalapps and APIs. Threats like off-the-booksAI tools and jailbreaking—AI deceiving itsown creators to bypass safety filters orother guardrails—give attackers morepotential entry points. Meanwhile, agentic AI has already begunto reshape how many CFOs think aboutinvestments. In Deloitte’s Q4 2025 NorthAmericaCFO Signalssurvey, 54% of CFOssay integrating AI agents in their financedepartments will be a transformationpriority this year (see Figure 1). As these autonomous systems get putin place, CFOs will likely have to overseerevamped policies and internal controls.Finance chiefs may also want to increasegovernance regarding shadow AI, theunauthorized use of AI systems byemployees seeking to boost their productivity. AI raises the stakes when it comes tobreaches. Deepfake invoices, generatedusing AI, can target finance teams. Companies can flip the script, however, bydeploying AI to defend the business. Theapproach entails using AI tools to stress-test the company’s defenses, trainingmodels to resist attacks, and spotting andresponding to threats instantly. For CFOs,a practical consideration is to developa shared language with their CISOs. Indoing so, finance chiefs can gain