VC-backed CFOs expect AI spending to double this year

Here’s the latest data point signaling AI’s takeover: CFOs of VC-backed firms say their spending on AI tools increased more than 10 times from 2024 to 2025, and they expect spending to double this year, according to a new survey from Silicon Valley Bank, now a division of First Citizens BancShares.

SVB surveyed 230 finance leaders at venture capital-backed companies, 71% of which had closed a Series B or later round and a majority of which had more than $20 million in 2025 revenue. A large majority of the companies were in enterprise software and other tech sectors.

Respondents expected to spend a median of $50,000 this year on AI tools and platforms. That’s big, if true, because it’s more than double the $20,000 their firms spent in 2025. Yet last year’s spending eclipsed the $2,000 median spending in 2024. Needless to say, AI spending change has not been linear in recent years!

Not only is AI commanding a larger budget, it’s taking up more of CFOs’ headspace. AI adoption is the top issue on respondents’ minds in this year’s survey. More than three-fifths (62%) listed AI adoption as their biggest or second-biggest “macro trend” for their business, up from 49% last year. VC-backed companies are “moving quickly” to adopt AI in both “their products and internal workflows,” according to the report.

Finance leaders mostly reported their AI investments were paying off. More than half of respondents (51%) reported “measurable ROI” from their AI spending. Also, according to the survey, firms that integrated AI into their products reported more than double median revenue growth relative to companies that haven’t yet done so.

“AI adoption is quickly forcing CFOs to pressure-test assumptions about hiring, spending and organizational structure that have guided startup management for a generation,” Jennifer Friel Goldstein, head of relationship management at SVB and a report coauthor, wrote in the survey report.

Measuring value. Not everyone reports an obvious ROI from their AI spend, which could endanger future budgets. Recent research from Harris Poll and AI platform Dataiku found that less than 40% of the 600 chief information officers they surveyed said “they can directly link half or more of their AI initiatives to measurable cost savings or revenue outcomes.”

Yet, other research from the Harvard Business Review, which included a survey of 1,000-plus global executives, found that 45% of respondents indicated “they are achieving a great deal of value” from AI initiatives.

That HBR study also found that CFOs appeared uniquely talented at delivering AI value. Just 2% of respondents said their companies assigned “AI value accountability” to the CFO, but when they did, 76% reported achieving a “great deal” of value, compared to 53% of those under the eye of CIOs or CTOs and 32% under functional execs.