After steady expansion for decades, the scope of the CFO position seems to be changing faster than ever.
The juxtaposition of the fragile geopolitical and economic landscapes and vast technological disruption is testing finance chiefs as never before, suggests a new report from consulting firm Oliver Wyman and The New York Stock Exchange.
Based on a global survey of 494 CFOs at public and private companies, the report revealed artificial intelligence and digital transformation as the biggest change-driving forces. Two-thirds (66%) of survey participants placed it among their top three such forces.
AI and digital transformation are “reshaping business models, altering workforce needs, and raising the stakes of technology competition among major economies,” the report said.
Next were business model disruption and competition (54%) and macroeconomic and geopolitical volatility (41%).
One consequence of the shifting environment is a “broader remit” for CFOs, consisting of more scenario modeling, faster decision support, and a greater need to reallocate resources as conditions change, according to the report.
“CFOs have been expanding their role beyond core reporting and control functions for years, but recent disruptions have sharply accelerated this evolution,” Oliver Wyman wrote.
Indeed, asked to name their top three most important duties, only 26% cited financial reporting and data stewardship, and just 13% cited financial resource management. Fewer than one in 10 said they expect either to grow in importance over the next three years.
Instead, strategy/transformation was the runaway leader on the most important responsibilities list. And that was consistent among CFOs across all company-size categories: 69% for small companies (less than $1 billion in revenue), 67% for midsize ones ($1 billion to $5 billion), 77% for large ones ($5 billion to $10 billion) and 67% for mega-companies (greater than $10 billion).
Many CFOs said that over the next three years, they expect to take on risk-related roles outside their traditional areas of influence. Three-quarters of them said they anticipate becoming more involved in strategic and business-model risks.
Meanwhile, despite AI and digital transformation increasingly driving CFOs’ agenda, just 8% of the survey participants said they have deployed AI-assisted tools or autonomous agents at scale within the finance department. However, 74% said tools for key finance activities are in the planning or piloting stage. Three in five (61%) said enterprise AI spending will increase by 5% to 20% in 2026, while 16% see faster growth.
CFOs have placed AI at the center of their transformation agenda, “but deployment maturity remains limited,” Oliver Wyman observed. “That gap makes it especially important for CFOs to demonstrate they can drive change effectively inside finance as they take on a wider role across the business.”
