EY: CFOs Are Betting on AI but Can't Prove the Return on Investment

Consulting firm EY has released this year's edition of its Global DNA of the CFO survey, in which finance chiefs worldwide overwhelmingly voice confidence in artificial intelligence, while admitting their organizations aren't ready to turn that confidence into measurable results.

The report, based on surveys and sixteen in-depth interviews with CFOs and EY experts, paints a picture of a gap between declared ambition and actual practice. Respondents represented organizations with revenue or assets of at least a billion dollars; 40 percent of those surveyed were from the Americas, 35 percent from EMEIA, and 25 percent from Asia-Pacific.

Ambition Outpaces Readiness

Declared enthusiasm for AI doesn't translate into real preparedness among finance teams. Only one in five CFOs consider their function fully ready to put artificial intelligence to use, and the gap in perceived potential between the most advanced teams and less mature ones is stark. In dynamic pricing, the share of respondents who see AI's potential rises from 24 percent among less-prepared teams to 65 percent among the most advanced ones.

EY notes that the barrier is rarely the technology itself. More often it comes down to data quality, a lack of clearly defined business benefits, and insufficient skills within finance teams. 61 percent of respondents cite data quality and error rates as the main problem when justifying AI spending to the board, while 51 percent point to unclear or distant benefits.

A Gap in Decision-Making Influence

The survey also reveals a broader issue with the CFO's role inside the company. 60 percent of respondents believe the CFO should define how the company creates value, but in practice only 25 percent actually lead investment decisions carrying uncertainty or a long return horizon. As many as 67 percent admit they urgently need to redefine how they measure company value, since traditional financial metrics aren't keeping pace with technological change.

Most CFOs already see themselves as strategic leaders. The challenge is turning that ambition into action - Deirdre Ryan, Global Finance Transformation Leader, EY

A similar note comes from a partner at Ernst & Young LLP, who points out that experimenting with AI in finance departments is only a first step, far from actually solving the toughest business problems.

Most finance functions have experimented with AI, but haven't used it to solve their biggest problems - Ben Castell, partner, Ernst & Young LLP

Finance Transformation Falls Short

The data on finance function transformation itself is even more telling. Only 12 percent of respondents say the results of their transformation efforts exceeded expectations, while 40 percent describe progress as slow or limited. Finance teams still spend an average of 47 percent of their time on purely operational tasks, leaving little room for the strategic analysis CFOs say they aspire to.

Tracy Farr, CFO of investment bank Lazard, cited in the survey, points to the cultural dimension of this shift: traditional finance training teaches people to avoid mistakes, while working with AI requires embracing experimentation while maintaining proper oversight.

Implications for Companies in Poland

For Polish companies, EY's findings are relevant because they echo what the firm's earlier local research showed in other areas of AI adoption in business: board-level enthusiasm is running ahead of real organizational readiness, and without cleaning up data and developing new ways to measure results, AI investments are hard to justify to a supervisory board. For finance departments, this points to a concrete recommendation: before the question of scaling AI comes up, they first need to get data quality in order and define new performance indicators, including ones that capture benefits difficult to express in a traditional profit-and-loss statement.

EY says future editions of the DNA of the CFO survey will track whether declared readiness to invest in AI actually translates into a bigger role for CFOs in their companies' key strategic decisions.