As AI becomes more integrated into enterprise operations and decision-making, chief financial officers (CFOs) are taking on a larger role in shaping enterprise priorities around AI, helping turn strategy into execution, and determining how investments and capital allocation support them.
A new global study from the IBM Institute for Business Value of 1 500 CFOs found that 62% of respondents say their role has expanded into enterprise technology or AI strategy leadership, 56% report greater portfolio-management and capital reallocation authority, and 54% have taken on more responsibility for business model or growth strategy design.
Yet only 6% of surveyed CFOs say finance has reached a transformation-ready state, with AI consistently embedded into finance workflows and decision-making at scale.
More than half of surveyed CFOs report that by 2030 they expect to have greater responsibility for designing financial and ethical guardrails for AI (56%), shaping operating models, workforce strategies and organisational structure (55%), and driving enterprise value creation and portfolio strategy (52%).
James Kavanaugh, CFO at IBM, writes in the study’s foreword: “Historically, the CFO was viewed as the guardian of stability, responsible for financial discipline and controllership of risk. Those responsibilities remain essential. But today, it’s not enough for CFOs and their teams to simply evaluate decisions. They need to shape them from the start – connecting strategy to execution, insight to action, and technology to value creation.”
The study also identifies a group of AI-first CFOs whose organizations demonstrate advanced capabilities across enterprise strategy, AI governance, integrated intelligence, capital allocation, and long-term planning. These CFOs are twice as likely as their peers to help design enterprise-wide business-model experiments or lead initiatives that could shape their industries.
Other key findings include:
Data-driven insights are changing how CFOs approach capital allocation
- 48% of CFOs say their organisations frequently update capital allocation for AI and growth investments using real-time, data-driven insights, while 38% say their approach is informed by data but slow to adjust.
- 48% of CFOs say finance actively tracks AI-driven value creation and reallocates capital accordingly, but just 8% say finance leads enterprise-wide AI value goals and has automated investment triggers tied to those results.
- Only 6% of respondents allow AI to recommend or execute reallocations within defined guardrails.
Finance is developing AI skills faster than it is redesigning work around AI
- Nearly half (48%) of CFOs describe finance as being in the developing stage, where targeted AI skills remain concentrated in specific roles, teams or use cases rather than scaled across the function.
- 42% of CFOs say finance has reached a high stage of AI readiness, with AI-fluent teams capable of scaling AI.
- Only 6% of respondents describe finance as transformation-ready with AI consistently embedded into workflows and decision-making at scale.
Organisations led by AI-first CFOs report stronger execution and better outcomes
- Organizations led by AI-first CFOs achieved revenue growth rates 23% higher relative to peer organizations from 2022 to 2024.
- AI-first CFOs are 18% more likely to report that their organisation executes its enterprise strategy effectively.
- Organizations led by AI-first CFOs approve funding for new AI initiatives 15% faster than peer organizations.
The study includes a playbook for CFOs on connecting enterprise strategy, AI governance, decision-making, capital allocation and long-term flexibility to create value.
To view the full report, visit: https://www.ibm.com/thought-leadership/institute-business-value/en-us/c-suite-study/cfo