GenAI Becomes the CFO’s Most Reliable Analyst

Big Tech spent millions on flashy Super Bowl commercials to hype generative artificial intelligence as a creative tool for the masses, but the holy grail is locking down lucrative enterprise subscriptions for armies of corporate employees. Multinational giants like Alphabet don’t just sell 8 million Gemini Enterprise seats in four months for novelty’s sake. Google’s parent company is trying to rewire how companies fundamentally operate across their business units, pouring up to $185 billion into AI infrastructure this year alone.

But while large enterprises are treating AI as a moonshot for enterprise-wide transformation, middle-market companies have more practical — but still game-changing — outcomes in mind.

Mid-sized companies, which account for one-third of U.S. GDP and private sector employment, don’t have multimillion-dollar AI labs or massive teams of data scientists. As such, their chief financial officers are focusing on how the technology can do the heavy lifting of corporate finance, according to the PYMNTS Intelligence report, “What Happens When CFOs Get Serious About Gen AI.” These companies view AI as a pragmatic tool for immediate operational improvements and quick, high-impact wins, according to an article posted last month by the World Economic Forum.

The leading use cases so far keep human financial experts at the center and the technology in the corner, shaving days off month-end financial closes and empowering leaner teams to punch above their weight. Still, generative AI is making itself a permanent fixture in the C-suite — with an invisible corner office and no complaints about working overtime.

Here are the top 10 ways financial leaders at middle market firms, which lie between mom-and-pop businesses and startups on one end and multinational corporations on the other, are letting the software do the labor-intensive work:

1 (Tie). Financial Reporting (87%)

Closing the corporate books is a notorious time-suck, but speed and accuracy for investors, shareholders and regulators are non-negotiable. A massive 87% of mid-market CFOs now see gen AI important to do the grueling work that drags out reporting cycles such as extracting often-messy data across multiple systems, flagging anomalies for human review and churning out management narratives. The result? Faster, cleaner statements with less of the exhausting scramble.

1 (Tie). Capital Management (87%)

In a high-interest, high-volatility environment, guessing on leverage and liquidity needs is corporate suicide. In a tie for the top spot, 87% of CFOs are using AI to model complex debt structures and run rapid financial stress tests. AI brings depth and speed that human analysts alone can’t touch — even as their own analyses sharpen the takeaways — actively slashing financing costs and honing executive insights.

3. Working Capital Optimization (85%)

It’s not glamorous, but working capital management divides the best CFOs from the rest. Hoard too much cash, and you bleed opportunity; squeeze too tight, and operations choke. Eighty-five percent of CFOs are deploying AI to speed up collections, fine-tune supplier payment timing and trap more cash in interest-bearing accounts.

4. Strategic Planning and Decision Support (83%)

Blind spots kill companies. To survive commercial pivots and expansions, 83% of CFOs rely on artificial intelligence to rapidly build and tear down financial scenarios. AI exposes exactly how different financial levers will impact the bottom line, pulling signals from across the business to reveal hidden opportunities and prevent costly screw-ups.

5. Financial Planning and Analysis (FP&A) (82%)

Anyone in corporate finance knows bad forecasts always come back to bite. For 82% of CFOs, Gen AI is stepping in to eliminate human error and wasted time that plagues traditional FP&A. By scrubbing data and instantly updating forward-looking scenarios when nasty curveballs — like unexpected tariffs — hit the market, AI ensures executives are never flying blind.

6 (Tie). Cost Management (78%)

With inflation and high interest rates eating margins alive, 78% of CFOs are using AI to put company spending under a terrifying microscope. AI tracks the gap between top-line budgets and actual cash out the door, spotlighting exactly where money is being wasted and pinpointing supplier contracts that need to be aggressively renegotiated.

6 (Tie). Risk Management (78%)

Also at 78%, generative AI is the ultimate shield against foreign currency whiplash and deadbeat counterparties. The technology sifts through a mountain of operational and financial signals to expose hidden vulnerabilities, flag anomalies and force standardized risk reporting across teams before disaster strikes.

8. Treasury Management (73%)

Treasury is the final source of truth for corporate liquidity, and 73% of CFOs are using AI to lock it down. AI obliterates the frantic, last-minute “did we pay that yet?” scrambles by automating agonizing tasks like new supplier onboarding and translating dense treasury data into hard facts for the C-suite.

9. Tax Planning and Compliance (70%)

The taxman leaves zero room for error. Seven in 10 CFOs are letting AI do the heavy lifting to organize supporting records, map out tax categories and dig up missed deductions. More importantly, AI models the downstream carnage of new corporate tax rules so the company is never caught off guard.

10. Corporate Governance and Compliance (62%)

Governance is a massive bureaucratic headache, but 62% of CFOs are using AI to make it the machine’s problem. AI drafts the excruciating policy documents, flags any deviations from protocol, weaponizes audit trails and stalks regulatory changes to ensure the company stays compliant without eating up executive time.

The Bottom Line

While the entertainment industry might treat artificial intelligence like an embarrassing secret that shouldn’t walk the red carpet, the corporate finance world is leaning in hard. If AI wins anything in the C-suite this year, it’ll be for Best Supporting Tool. It might never get thanked or invited to the executive retreat, but by stripping out the computational grunt work, it has quietly become the CFO’s most ruthless competitive advantage.

For all PYMNTS AI coverage, subscribe to the daily AI Newsletter.