“Stories and lessons from an unexpected journey in finance.”

Finance leaders are pouring unprecedented amounts of capital into AI and automation tools. Yet, when you talk to these same leaders behind closed doors, very few actually feel confident in their ability to accelerate AI adoption across their departments.

We keep assuming that AI failure is a technology problem. We blame the software, the data integration, or the vendor. But the tough candor is much simpler, and much harder to fix: it is a literacy problem. Low levels of AI literacy are actively undermining our digital transformation goals.

You cannot simply buy your way out of low AI literacy. Handing a powerful generative AI tool to a team that only knows legacy spreadsheet workflows is like dropping a Ferrari engine into a rusty go-kart. It will not make you faster; it will just break down.

If you want to actually see a return on your tech investments, you need to stop buying new tools and start building up the four core pillars of AI literacy within your team:

AI Foundations: Your team needs to understand the basic concepts and principles, including the difference between traditional AI and generative AI.

AI Value: Employees must be able to identify valid use cases, calculate ROI, and understand the tangible business impact of the tools.

AI Engineering: This is no longer just for developers; finance professionals need practical technical skills like prompt engineering and proper data handling.

AI Governance: Your team must know how to navigate the ethical frameworks, internal policies, and regulations surrounding these new technologies.

Before you sign another software contract, ask yourself: are we investing as much in our people’s capability as we are in our tech stack? A world-class tool is entirely useless without a team that knows how to drive it.

When you look at those four pillars, where is your finance team struggling the most right now?

#TheAccidentalCFO #INERSEC #AIinFinance #DigitalTransformation #CFOPlaybook