Dive Brief:

• Nearly one quarter (23%) of U.S. CFO job listings in April required some knowledge of artificial intelligence and its implications, according to research released Monday by finance software provider Datarails.
• The number is up slightly from 20% in January, according to the study, which analyzed 1,000 U.S. job openings in the CFO’s office during the first month of the year compared with 1,000 listings in April. The data was collected from job portals such as Glassdoor, Indeed, Job2Careers and ZipRecruiter.
• “As the finance landscape continues to shift at an unprecedented pace, those who adapt and embrace these changes will be best positioned to advance their careers and drive strategic growth,” Datarails CEO Didi Gurfinkel said in a press release.

Dive Insight:

A report on the findings highlighted a few examples of companies that have mentioned AI in a recent CFO job listing including luxury perfume maker House of Sillage, which sought a finance chief “adept at leveraging technology and AI to drive growth and efficiency, with experience in firm acquisitions and predictive analytics.”

CFOs and other C-suite executives are scrambling to keep pace with rapid advancements in the area of AI that are expected to boost the U.S. economy in coming years.

Generative AI in particular could enable automation of up to 70% of business activities across almost all occupations by 2030, adding trillions of dollars in value to the global economy, according to McKinsey.

However, along with the potential benefits of the nascent technology, business leaders are also grappling with some of the challenges of adoption. This includes accurately predicting the potential costs of an AI deployment ahead of time as well as measuring the return on investment in the post-implementation phase, Gartner analysts said last month at the research and advisory firm’s 2024 CFO and Finance Executive Conference in National Harbor, Maryland.

“Given how new AI is, we don’t really know how much it costs, and are learning as we go,” Gartner’s Nisha Bhandare said at the event.

In discussions with clients, Gartner consultants have found that AI cost estimates were off by as much as 500-1,000% in some cases, she said.

A majority (65%) of CFOs in the U.S. are already actively integrating generative AI into their strategy, according to a recent survey from Billtrust, a provider of business-to-business digital payments services.

Over three-quarters (76%) of respondents reported significant gains in efficiency and process speed as a result of GenAI adoption, and 36% said the technology is already adding value and impacting their revenue streams, with an additional 40% expecting it to do so within the next year.

But the Billtrust study also revealed a significant knowledge gap, with only 49% of CFOs saying they felt “very knowledgeable” about GenAI’s capabilities.

More than a third (34%) admitted to believing it will take the next generation of finance leaders to fully scale the implementation of GenAI in finance, Billtrust found.

“This gap highlights crucial concerns regarding the preparedness of finance teams to tackle Generative AI’s intricacies and its impact on strategic choices,” a report on the survey findings said.