I don’t mean that literally (please, no singling out those colleagues who seem the most robotic). Nor am I implying that being like AI means you’re out of a job. I’m thinking about the roles that are most compatible with what AI does best: making predictions.

Making better financial predictions with AI

By churning through massive amounts of data, AI algorithms learn, often with little or no human intervention, how to predict what comes next—whether it be the next letter in a word, the next move of a human player in the Go game, or the next chemical element needed to create a new vaccine, as Moderna did when it created its COVID-19 vaccine in 64 days using AI (without it, the timeline would have been three years).

So, when you look at the organization from the predictive perspective, finance becomes the most obvious AI doppelgänger.

Why? Finance’s most vital role is to give the organization a clear picture of what is likely to happen in the next quarter, if not the next year. And AI can help the humans with that.

Researchers from the National Bureau of Economic Research found that AI can create not just forecasts but alternative future scenarios at a depth that is impossible for humans to match.

But finance can’t go it alone in making its predictions. It relies on data from every part of the business to fuel its auditing, reporting, compliance, and risk management processes.

For example, researchers investigating AI and financial reporting quality found that when AI is used across the organization, finance can make better predictions about everything from sales returns and warranty claims to allowances for doubtful debts, loan losses, and inventory or other asset write-downs.

Answer your biggest questions about AI

Prediction is the killer app for AI in finance and across the business. But that doesn’t mean it’s obvious how to put it to work in your company. That’s why we created  AI in Finance: Myths, Misconceptions, and Reality.

In this comprehensive FAQ, we pop the hype bubble and answer your biggest questions about using AI in finance and the rest of the business. Read it to learn about AI's strengths and weaknesses, its effect on finance, its governance and deployment in the rest of the organization, and concrete advice on AI strategy.

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