Managing the human side of AI initiatives

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Many CFOs are running into roadblocks implementing AI, finance professionals told us at the Gartner Finance Symposium/Xpo: Rising costs and uncertain ROI have some questioning whether AI can live up to its promise, while dirty or siloed data is slowing down AI initiatives.

But some of the sticky points of AI adoption are purely human, sources said—implementing the tech may be easier than getting people on board.

Baby steps. One of the myths around AI implementation is that it has to involve a full-scale process overhaul, Rajiv Ramachandran, SVP and CPO of invoice to pay at Coupa, said. “The biggest barrier right now is people don’t know how to start, because they think they have to do this huge transformational project with millions of dollars of investment,” he said.

He advocates a step-by-step approach instead. “Start by enabling, in a very fast but easy manner, in a controlled platform, agents that can bring you immediate quantifiable value,” he said. Choose a platform that gives staff “the guardrails and the controls that they can put on top of those agents, so that they can trust them.”

When personnel see the results and have that sense of safety, then you can expand, Ramachandran said: “You start small, you gain the value, you understand the adoption, you build, and then you grow.”

Delegate. CFOs have a lot to contend with, Omar Choucair, CFO of Trintech, noted, and AI has only made things more complex. Why? It’s given CFOs a whole new set of metrics to track.

“I think CFOs are struggling with, how much is this going to cost?” Choucair said. “You can have one developer that is using it to the max, and they’re gonna wind up with more tokens than 100 people, so it’s just created a completely new analysis for the CFO, and the analysis is critical because the board and the CEOs are pushing so hard to use these tools and use them effectively and efficiently [with] all your employees, every department…I think that’s what people are struggling with, because they don’t want to be the ‘no’ person, they don’t want to say no, but at the same time, somebody has to pay at the end of the month or the end of the quarter.”

To track all that usage and those costs, CFOs need “really good lieutenants around them that are digitally savvy,” he said.

Along those lines, Trintech has created an AI technology task force, Choucair said, with a representative from each department. The group looks at AI data weekly and reports to the executive team every two weeks.

Empower the AI champions. Many companies now have people in roles such as chief AI officer or digital transformation lead, Yair Weinberger, co-founder and co-CEO of AI startup Reindeer, observed. In some companies, though, “it’s just a fancy title, and they have really very zero pull,” he said. AI leaders need the backing of senior leadership to be successful, he explained.

“Being ready means that you have actually put the executive sponsorship behind the initiative,” Weinberger said. “Once you do that, a lot of things fall in line,” even if your processes or people aren’t completely ready, he added. “If you have someone who is really strong, or has a strong team with them that is driving the transformation and has the backing of the C-level suite, then it works,” he said.