AI ISN’T THE CHALLENGE

Everyone is talking about AI in finance, and I'm all for it! Maybe I'm biased because I'm in this field ...but lately I've been questioning whether AI is even the hard part...

On paper, everything makes sense the data is there, tools are evolving but that’s not where things tend to break. They break in execution. In the environments I’ve supported, the issue has never been accessing to data; it’s been making that data usable across systems, stakeholders, and real decision timelines.

I think we can all agree that real environments aren’t controlled, in fact they’re layered and complex.

Data doesn’t always align, systems don’t fully integrate, and priorities don’t always match. Governance is necessary, but it can slow what should be timely decisions. And that alone defeats the purpose of efficiency, so when we talk about AI advancing finance, I find myself asking a different question: Can it actually function inside that complexity? Can it work with imperfect data, align across organizations, and support decisions without adding more friction?

What I’ve learned thus far, is this -impact doesn’t come from more data or better tools alone. It comes from clarity in how decisions are made.

Finance leaders have an advantage here, not only because we understand the numbers, but because we sit at the intersection of data, governance, and execution. This is very valuable to us!

If we get that right, technology becomes powerful. If we don’t, it just becomes another layer.