That was a takeaway from the first Fortune Emerging CFO webinar of the year, held on Jan. 27 in partnership with Workday, during our discussion with three finance leaders: Tiffany Buchanan, CFO of Dataminr; Dan Durn, CFO and EVP of finance, technology, security and operations at Adobe; and Zachary Wasserman, CFO at Huntington Bancshares.

At Dataminr, AI is a standing item in the company’s annual operating plan and a factor in every budget decision, Buchanan said. She views AI adoption as non-negotiable across all functions, enabled by native capabilities in modern SaaS platforms and AI-powered tools that are now accessible to companies of all sizes. That approach positions the CFO as a strategic partner to the CEO, directing capital toward initiatives that drive growth and efficiency, Buchanan said.

Durn framed Adobe’s AI strategy around increasing “organizational velocity”—compressing the time from insight to action in a data-rich environment. Embedding AI across operations allows teams to detect signals faster and respond more effectively, he said. But technology alone is not enough; success also depends on culture, continuous learning, and leaders who bring intellectual curiosity rather than relying on static playbooks, Durn explained.

For Wasserman, AI adoption in a heavily regulated bank requires balancing speed with risk. With model capabilities advancing rapidly, even a short delay can create a significant competitive disadvantage, he warned. Huntington has responded by building a generative AI risk framework, prioritizing use cases by risk level, and requiring human oversight for higher-impact applications, he said.

Those executive perspectives underscore a broader shift now playing out across finance organizations: CFOs are moving from AI experimentation to execution.

The data problem beneath the AI push

Sommer Frazier, managing director of finance transformation at KPMG US, explained during the webinar that while most companies have adopted AI in some form, many remain stuck between pilot projects and scaled deployment, she said. Data quality issues, weak governance, infrastructure gaps, talent shortages, and cybersecurity concerns are among the most common obstacles, Frazier said.

The challenge is elevating finance’s role as a steward of enterprise data. According to a recent KPMG AI Pulse survey, 82% of executives now cite data quality as the top barrier to AI success. Frazier said finance leaders must help establish standards and governance frameworks, while business teams retain day-to-day accountability for the data they generate and maintain.

Generative AI, once a novelty, is already embedded in everyday enterprise tools, from productivity software to core financial systems, she said. Finance teams are using it to summarize meetings, draft variance commentary, analyze contracts at scale, and identify pricing and payment-term patterns that can improve financial performance.

Looking ahead, Frazier expects 2026 to mark a shift toward scaled AI agent orchestration, with employees increasingly managing networks of AI agents rather than discrete processes. The result, she said, will be a reallocation of finance talent toward higher-value analysis and decision-making.

You can learn more about the additional topics discussed by watching the complete webinar here.

Sheryl Estrada
sheryl.estrada@fortune.com

Leaderboard

Fortune 500 Power Moves:

Luca Zaramella, CFO of Mondelez International (No. 125), is taking on the newly created role of chief operating officer while continuing to serve as CFO for now. Zaramella, finance chief since 2018, started the COO role effective Feb. 1. The company is conducting a search for a successor to the CFO position who will replace him.

Every Friday morning, the weekly Fortune 500 Power Moves column tracks Fortune 500 company C-suite shifts—see the most recent edition.

More notable CFO moves:

Cassandra “Sandra” Harris, CFO of Genesco Inc. (NYSE: GCO) a footwear-focused specialty retailer, will step down effective March 6 to pursue other opportunities. She will assist with the transition and remain as a consultant and principal accounting officer through the filing of the company’s fiscal 2026 Form 10-K on March 25. Mimi E. Vaughn, Genesco’s CEO, will assume the role of interim CFO. Vaughn previously served as Genesco’s finance chief from 2015 to 2019. The company has initiated an active search for a permanent CFO.

Bill Carey was appointed CFO of OPSWAT, a cybersecurity provider. Carey succeeds Simon Ho as finance chief. Ho, who has held the role since February 2020, will retire and remain available in an advisory capacity. Before joining OPSWAT, Carey served as interim CFO and chief accounting officer at Couchbase. During his tenure, he played a key role in the company's successful initial public offering in 2021.

Big Deal

Gartner, Inc. research highlights four financial strategies CFOs should evaluate to drive efficient growth amid ongoing economic volatility: paying suppliers sooner to boost the bottom line; investing in areas competitors can’t replicate; zero-based SG&A (selling, general, and administrative) redesign; and intentional debt deployment. 

The findings are based on a Gartner analysis of more than 1,500 companies across the S&P 500, S&P 400, and S&P 600, which identified 105 “efficient growth” firms that delivered a 51% total shareholder return premium from 2014 to 2024. Gartner defines efficient growth as achieving above-industry revenue growth, margin expansion, and capital efficiency simultaneously.

The full Gartner CFO report is available to Gartner clients. Non-clients can access related CFO insights and research summaries here. 

Going deeper

In an appearance on Fortune's Titans and Disruptors of Industry video podcast, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla talked with Fortune Editor-in-Chief Alyson Shontell about the triumphs and challenges of navigating the pharmaceutical giant through the pandemic and what is shaping up afterward. Describing 2023 as a “very difficult period for me,” Bourla told Shontell that he believes “the winners in life are differentiated from the losers in life because the winners never fall. The winners always stand up again.”

Overheard

"What kind of leadership will we build to guide AI?"

—Carolyn Dewar, a senior partner at McKinsey & Company’s Bay Area office and leader of the global CEO Practice, writes in a Fortune opinion piece. Dewar is the co-author of A CEO for All Seasons: Mastering the Cycles of Leadership.