As 2024 moves into its second half, many CFOs have the same top strategic priority: Using AI and other automation techniques to do tasks previously performed by humans. The Q2 edition of the CFO Survey, done by the Federal Reserve Banks of Richmond and Atlanta and Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, found that nearly six in 10 companies have already implemented software, equipment or technology to perform these tasks, while 53.6% seek to add to their tech stack to automate more employee tasks in the next year. However, it’s important to note that most financial departments aren’t looking to replace those humans, for now. More than 87% that implemented AI in the last 12 months did it to enhance their business processes—just about the same proportion that plan to use AI for this function in the next 12 months. Increasing output quality is also key—57.7% added AI for this reason in the last year, while 58.1% plan to get that outcome in the next year. Less than half wanted to reduce labor costs through AI in the last year, but 54.7% stated that was a goal for the next year. Daniel Weitz, survey director for the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, writes that the current economic situation might be pushing CFOs more toward AI automation. As inflation grew in 2021 and 2022, input costs and employee wages also increased, which in turn led to higher unit costs. The pressures of the recent past have moderated, but pricing pressures are still pretty high. Survey results show that companies that decided to automate tasks last year also experienced faster price growth then. And those same companies are anticipating slower price growth this year, perhaps because automation—and greater accuracy that comes with machine-based calculations—means the company spends less.

Full story : How Businesses Can Figure Out The ROI On AI.