CFOs and CIOs will need to collaborate more closely as companies bring on AI

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AI is likely to create a new era of collaboration between the CFO and the CIO. And it might be a little contentious, according to experts.

The 2024 Gartner CIO and Technology Executive Survey showed that 71% of CFOs believe they’re in charge of enterprise-wide technology, but so do 77% of CIOs. So what happens when both executives think they’re in charge of the company’s AI plan?

“AI is going to force both the CFO and the CIO into a tighter, more strategic, and probably sometimes more tense partnership,” Connor Augustyn, dDirector of finance transformation at West Monroe, told CFO Brew.

According to Michael Welch, chief information security officer at cybersecurity consultancy MorganFranklin Cyber, in the past the two executives often didn’t have much of a direct relationship. And if there was one, according to CFO advisor Yoana Land, it could often be transactional and contentious.

But as data has become a powerful tool for the CFO in the past decade, good CFOs were already cultivating strong relationships with their CIOs, according to Michael Bayer, CFO of Wasabi Technologies. AI is the continuation, and acceleration, of this trend. And it will make working closely with your CIO a requirement, he added.

According to a survey from enterprise software platform OneStream, on AI and the CFO, half of surveyed CFOs reported that their relationship with their CTO/CIO has become “more strategic,” with a third calling it “more collaborative.”

So what role does the CFO play in the relationship with the CIO? And how will it change?

Risk evaluator: Research shows that CFOs are worried that implementing AI across an organization comes with a lot of risk, so it’s no wonder they want to get their hands all over the AI strategy. According to OneStream, 75% of CFOs believe they’re leading their organization’s AI strategy.

“Can we make sure that we’re [implementing AI] without introducing new risk into our environment, for our customers, for our partners, and for our shareholders?” Welch said.

For Bayer, the CFO should be a powerful collaborator on this question with the CIO.

“It’s for the CFO…to have balance and perspective in a risky and unpredictable world,” he said.

Overlapping responsibilities. The very nature of the C-suite remits and AI’s impact could set the stage for conflict. CIOs handle systems, infrastructure, and data, while CFOs are concerned with return on investment. AI overlaps both responsibilities.

“CIOs aren’t used to being able to be held accountable to ROI investments,” Augustyn said. “CFOs aren’t normally used to being responsible for the data across the organization. You’re getting a little bit of an overlap in the Venn diagram, and that’s why the two of them have to start collaborating together.”

Augustyn sees another time bomb in the CIO/CFO relationship: data ownership.

“AI is only as good as the data it is being used on,” he said.

While CIOs are used to owning the data infrastructure, he sees CFO departments as wanting to be more responsible for the data ownership and fidelity, as AI becomes critical to business operations and strategy.

“You’re going to see a lot higher collaboration between the two of them, because they have to be able to co-orchestrate all these AI use cases,” he said.

Show me the money: CFOs are going to turn that famous budgeting eye toward the CIO’s department. They’re going to start asking tough questions around whether the investments are worth the expense and risk, according to Welch.

CFOs don’t always have the technical expertise to understand the scope of an AI project and how it could be of value to the business, according to Land. Similarly, CIOs aren’t always best positioned to evaluate the financial ROI of complex, long-term AI initiatives.

“CIO and CFO have to decide what’s the best usage of the budget,” Land told CFO Brew. “And how do they view AI, as a necessity for growth and not only as an expense that needs to be controlled.”

Lost in translation: The two roles need to bridge a potential language barrier for good collaboration.

“CFOs need to speak multiple languages,” Bayer said. “They need to speak people. They need to speak data. They can’t just speak accounting and finance.”

And critically, CFOs need to start speaking digital and AI native.

“The more AI aware you are, the more credibility you have in that relationship with your CIO, because they’ll say, ‘oh, he gets it,’ or, ‘she gets it.’” he said.

So it’s time to get that CFO/CIO meeting you’ve been putting off on the calendar.