Finance Professionals Embrace AI Amid Trust Concerns

A global survey of 1,600 finance professionals conducted by the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) and Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand (CA ANZ) found that 93 % are worried about the integrity and verifiability of AI‑generated insights, citing hallucinations, bias and data quality issues. More than 60 % say they have expanded use of real‑time operational data in the past two years, shifting finance from retrospective reporting to forward‑looking analysis, and nearly 60 % report tighter collaboration with data and IT teams.

The study also highlighted a major skills gap: around 70 % of respondents rate their generative‑AI skills as basic or non‑existent, and over a third have received no formal training in data storytelling. Respondents identified data quality and integration challenges as key obstacles.

Parallel market research projects rapid adoption of generative AI in business. The AI analytics market is forecast to reach $2.21 billion by 2026, with more than 80 % of enterprises expected to run generative‑AI applications by the end of that year. Vendors such as Microsoft Power BI with Copilot, Tellius, Tableau Agent and Oracle AI Agent Studio are being deployed to automate reporting, provide real‑time risk alerts and enable conversational data queries, accelerating monthly close cycles from weeks to days.

Industry leaders stress that responsible AI adoption requires strong governance, upskilling programmes and clear human‑in‑the‑loop controls to ensure AI outputs are validated and bias‑free.