Deloitte Finance Trends 2026: Finance Leaders Take Helm in Strategic Decision-Making Amid Global Challenges
Optimizing costs, maximizing AI investments and developing talent emerge as important strategic opportunity areas
New York, Oct. 8, 2025 —
Key takeaways
- More than half (57%) of surveyed finance leaders play a lead role in shaping enterprise strategy for their organizations.
- Finance leaders can drivee more consistent cost savings for their organizations through AI-and cloud-powered cost management strategies.
- Sixty-three percent of finance teams have fully deployed and actively use AI solutions, while 14% of respondents are using fully integrated AI agents.
- Talent shortages and skills gaps continue to be a challenge for finance leaders, with 64% planning to prioritize AI, automation and data analysis capabilities over traditional skillsets among their teams in the coming year.
Why this matters
CFOs and other finance executives face urgency to build for the future, harnessing the power of technologies like AI and moving at the speed of innovation. Risks regarding economic uncertainty, supply chain disruptions and the evolving regulatory landscape are pushing finance leaders to innovate traditional finance tools, lean into newer technologies like AI and develop a pipeline of future-ready talent. Deloitte’s inaugural Finance Trends 2026: Navigating the expanded scope of finance report explores how finance leaders can embrace more strategic leadership roles to execute these priorities and help their organizations enhance costs, catalyze innovation and orchestrate a strategic agenda that fuels enterprise-wide growth and value.
"In today’s rapidly shifting business environment, opportunities emerge and fade faster than many organizations can react. Our ‘Finance Trends 2026’ report shows that finance leaders are rising to the challenge — moving beyond traditional roles to become strategic advisors who help their organizations harness change as a catalyst for growth. By embracing advanced technologies, reimagining talent and driving process innovation, agile finance teams are positioning their organizations to seize opportunities that others may miss. At Deloitte, we’re committed to giving finance leaders the confidence to turn rapid change into a business advantage"
— Ed Hardy, Finance Strategic Growth Markets leader, Deloitte
"With the undeniable potential of advanced technologies to reshape finance, forward-thinking leaders are seizing the moment. Their early successes are redefining the future of the finance function, transforming it into an insight-driven powerhouse that delivers cost efficiencies and an elevated talent experience."
— James Glover, Finance Transformation AI and Innovation leader, Deloitte
Key findings from the Finance Trends 2026: Navigating the expanded scope of finance report
Scenario planning and strong governance help leaders navigate uncertainty
Finance leaders today face many different operational and macroeconomic risks competing for priority ranking, led by economic uncertainty (26%) and followed closely by financial reporting (25%) and data privacy (24%). To manage continued uncertainty, leaders are strengthening advanced scenario planning (30%) and building more agile governance models to support faster decision-making (28%).
Finance strategy leaders are more likely to embrace AI and cloud
The scope of finance leadership is expanding, with finance leaders holding greater accountability for driving business outcomes. More than half (57%) of surveyed leaders play a lead role in shaping enterprise strategy — and they are scaling their impact differently than less influential peers. Strategy leaders are ahead in adopting cloud (48%) and AI (43%) to drive results, with many also reporting clear and measurable value driven by these investments.
Finance-driven cost management is delivering savings through AI
Forty two percent of CFOs surveyed own cost management, yet the results they drive are powerful. Among all finance leaders surveyed, 47% consistently report meeting their cost savings goals compared to 39% of their non-owning peers. Finance leaders who lead on identifying cost reduction opportunities are primarily doing so through AI (49%) and cloud infrastructure (51%).
The disconnect between AI adoption and ROI
While 63 % of surveyed finance leaders have fully deployed and actively use AI, only 21% report clear, measurable ROI. Early-stage adopters cite legacy technology (41%) and justifying ROI (30%) as major adoption barriers, while data privacy concerns are prominent for leaders in an advanced implementation stage (57%). Even though just 14% of respondents have fully integrated AI agents, agentic AI is seen as the next frontier, with top opportunities in sales and profitability management (48%), working capital optimization (46%) and expense management (44%).
Embedding data science into finance talent toolkits
Nearly two-thirds (64%) of finance leaders plan to infuse more technical skills — such as AI, automation and data analysis — into their teams over the next two years. With fewer professionals seeking CPA licenses and many others nearing retirement, leaders are using AI and automation (40%) and specialized training (39%) to bridge skills gaps. Non-traditional talent sourcing (35%) and insourcing from other departments (28%) are also rising.
For more information and to download a copy of the “Finance Trends 2026” report, click here.
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