How generative AI will impact the finance department

ChatGPT has created new opportunities and risks for leaders across all departments and the finance department is no different.

Mark D. McDonald, senior director analyst with the Gartner Finance practice discussed how generative AI and autonomous finance will impact the financial department and its employees.

According to Gartner, CFOs should cut through the hype and provide their unique risk-focused perspective in evaluating opportunities with this emerging technology.

Within the finance function, there isn’t a fear of AI taking jobs, if anything McDonald said it will create an opportunity to reduce workloads.

“AI creates an opportunity to raise that bar, amplifying human productivity so that rather than just being a back-office bureaucracy keeping the lights on, finance can be a strategic lever in the business,” he said.

“It’s true that many roles may shift, and some roles will be lost, but some new jobs will be created. AI won’t replace people per se, but it will replace people who don’t use AI as that becomes the most productive way to do business.”

He added, “Rather than seeing automation in the finance function as reducing the number of staff needed, look at it as a way to increase the scope of what it can achieve with the same headcount.”

McDonald said CFOs should use their risk-focused perspective to push for, and help, shape a policy at the organisational level that mitigates the risks posed by unrestricted use of ChatGPT, including output quality risks, data security risks and regulatory risks, as well as their downstream implications. 

He said, “They must prioritise prerequisites for future use of ChatGPT and similar technologies within the finance function, including identifying appropriate potential use cases and discussing how ChatGPT and other large language model-based applications could fit within the function’s technology strategy, as well as how employees view this technology.”

While ChatGPT is an excellent example of the value that AI can bring, as it is now, it has some limitations for practical use in finance, McDonald explained.

“For example, using it to help a finance leader generate software code or SQL statements is a great use; however, asking it questions about their financials won't work,” he said.

“That’s because algorithms such as ChatGPT can only answer questions that they have been trained to answer. Without the detailed data of a CFO’s organisation, they aren’t able to provide accurate feedback. Moreover, ChatGPT will try to provide an answer even if it doesn't have the ability to answer it correctly.”

Eventually, we can expect to have secure ChatGPT-like services that are focused on specific organisations, but this will take time, McDonald added.

“For now, leaders should focus on transitioning culture and skills towards using advanced technologies and making sure that their teams have the right capabilities as technologies advances,” he said.

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