CFOs step up as AI value architects

Deloitte’s Tech Trends 2026 report presents leading organizations as, “anchoring AI initiatives to measurable business outcomes, designing modular architectures for flexibility, and redefining talent strategies around human-machine collaboration.”

As organizations set course towards identifying and implementing innovative ways for adopting and scaling AI, finance leaders will be required to allocate costs and measure the return. This becomes challenging, especially when capturing the precise value of AI appears daunting, due to reasons such as improved vendor relations or stronger customer ties. 57% of finance executives say they are now among the top leaders driving strategy development across the organization, according to a survey conducted for Finance Trends 2026. 

In this evolving state of technology, we share three main challenges CFOs face—costs, risks, and accountability—and what they are learning in the journey.

Costs

AI is not only significant but also critical for finance and other functions of the organization. With this acceptance, CFOs are seeing capital allocation for AI in a different light—from managing risks to balancing internal controls and governance, and from building fresh performance metrics to AI-specific profit-and-loss views. The vision is gradually shifting from predictable IT spending to usage-based costs and R&D experimentation. However, measuring absolute ROI stays daunting as organization’s AI adoption speeds up over the next few years—especially when embedding AI in products and services is expected to deliver a direct impact on value-chain, and other software expenditures.

Risks

AI’s advent into organization's architecture and core operations has made it more vulnerable to cyberattacks. Addition of new systems and data flows further add to the mix, thereby widening attack surface points beyond apps and APIs. Elevating the risks further, threats like jailbreaking (where AI bypasses safety filters and other guardrails) and deepfake invoices (using AI to create fake invoices that appear realistic) complicate the matters further. As stewards for enterprise risk management, CFOs would need to reimagine investments in cyber defense, staying at pace with organization’s core AI investments. Meanwhile, Agentic AI is emerging stronger, reshaping the way CFOs think about investments. Similarly, for other functions, as more autonomous systems emerge, CFOs will have to oversee policies and internal controls to mitigate risks.

Accountability

To accomplish their role as value architects shaping ROI from this technology, CFOs would be required to reimagine capital allocation and governance structures accounting for both experimentation and failure. Balancing initial allocation with current performance, it will be critical to continuously evaluate returns per original estimates. New questions directed towards CFOs would need answers sooner than later—what the impact of AI on organizational structure would be; and what should be the breaking point for a company where present operating model limits its ability to advance and realize its capabilities, among others.

Addressing these challenges now and applying the lessons they reveal can give CFOs a fresh perspective and help position their organizations for meaningful progress. Read the full article to explore how CFOs play a pivotal role in guiding an organization's strategic AI investments and measuring returns.