Will 2026 be a year of spending or a year of paring back? Based on the results of a fourth-quarter survey by Gartner, many CFOs are hoping for both.
In an August survey of more than 200 finance chiefs, 56% ranked “achieving enterprise-wide cost optimization targets” among their top five urgent action items over the next six months. Yet 47% also put “allocating capital to new growth opportunities” in their top five. Gartner conducted the survey over the summer and released it publicly for the first time last week.
Dennis Gannon, VP analyst in the Gartner Finance practice, said the results show the “very explicit tension around cost and growth goals.” It’s something that “shows up every day” in his conversations with finance chiefs, he said in an interview with CFO.com.
“Growth goals are ratcheting up for the year ahead, but the expectation is that CFOs will hold the line on all the cost optimization and cash flow optimization they’ve done here in 2025,” Gannon said.
Gannon emphasized that “true cost optimization” is “not just a euphemism for cost cutting.”
“We’re talking about actually redeploying costs we’ve cut into growing the business in other places,” he said.
Still, finance chiefs may find themselves walking a thin line between the two concepts. One-time cost cuts, Gartner researchers said, pose risks themselves. “Gartner research has shown the emphasis on cost optimization presents some notable risks for CFOs,” the company said in a news release issued last week. “Investors often view cost reductions skeptically, recognizing that unsustainable cuts can negatively impact stock prices.”
To that end, some respondents are evidently hoping to avoid risks through better forecasting models. Gartner found that 51% of CFO respondents ranked “improving financial forecast accuracy and quality” among their top five action items in the coming months.
The prospect of artificial intelligence continues to weigh on CFOs’ minds, though less than other priorities highlighted in the survey. To wit, 39% of respondents put “accelerating AI use in the finance function” in their top five action items, while about a third (33%) did the same for “driving enterprise AI investment impact.”
There may be a reason fewer respondents are prioritizing AI adoption in the near future: “CFOs lack confidence in these initiatives’ ability to deliver real enterprise impact,” Gartner officials wrote in a research summary. The company’s survey found that just 36% of respondents “feel assured they can achieve meaningful AI outcomes.”
Like many other business leaders, Gannon acknowledged there are “going to be winners and losers” in the current AI boom. All the same, he and his team still recommend that finance leaders ramp up the ways they might use the nascent technology. Gartner specifically called for a “dual-path strategy,” where CFOs take advantage of “embedded AI within vendor software for immediate gains, while building the culture, governance, skills and data capabilities required for sustained value.”
As Gannon puts it: “Part of this journey is going to involve an inevitable degree of experimentation and failure. You can’t turn on AI and start predicting the future.”
Gartner’s research also seems to suggest a loosening up of the many trade-related fears that dominated much of 2025. In particular, only 19% of respondents ranked “mitigating the effect of supply chain disruptions” among their top five action items in the near future.
