Use of artificial intelligence (AI) is accelerating in finance functions at financial firms, but chief financial officers (CFOs) are taking a cautious view of expansion without a control framework. They acknowledge efficiency gains but judge that large-scale adoption is difficult without governance and risk management keeping pace.

TechRadar reported on June 1 that CFOs, finance directors and senior finance leaders in Britain and Ireland agreed AI can improve efficiency in finance work and support decision-making. They cited as a key concern that compliance, audit and data control frameworks are not keeping up with the pace of technology adoption.

A recent study by Nexas.AI also confirmed such concerns. The survey found that 43 percent of large financial companies did not have an AI risk framework. AI integration is moving quickly across organisations, but there are not enough mechanisms for finance teams to oversee and validate it.

Such gaps can lead to regulatory and operational risks. As finance work is directly linked to accounting standards, internal controls and external audits, there is an observation that if AI-generated results cannot be explained or traced, the risk of reputational damage could increase.

For now, AI use in finance is concentrated in relatively low-risk work. Areas cited include month-end closing, administrative tasks, reconciliation, extracting data from documents, transaction coding and automating links between financial processes. The approach is to assign repetitive work to AI while keeping critical financial judgement and final responsibility with people.

The conditions demanded by finance leaders are clear: transparency, auditability, data governance, risk management and regulatory compliance. If new AI tools fail to meet these standards, they could lead to non-compliance with accounting standards or operational errors. As finance is a heavily regulated industry, AI systems must also be explainable and accountable.

Some financial companies are therefore focusing on selecting finance systems suited to the regulatory environment, rather than simply adding more AI tools. There is also strong wariness that they should not rely on AI tools whose results cannot be traced or verified. The key to AI adoption is shifting from speed to manageability.

They also drew a line under forecasts that AI will replace finance staff. Automation of low-risk repetitive work will expand, but the role of finance staff is likely to shift toward interpretation, judgement, oversight and strategy planning.

AI use in the financial sector is expected to continue expanding. But broad adoption in the field will require more than efficiency alone. Only systems that meet CFOs' standards for control, auditability and regulatory compliance are likely to move into core work in finance functions.