As AI reshapes industries, finance leaders are evaluating how to harness its power to drive better outcomes. CFOs are uniquely positioned at the intersection of operational reality and strategic planning. The best ones are proactively taking control of their own destinies.

Vanguard CFO Mike Rollings, who will retire at the end of June, and John Bendl, Rollings’ successor, are strong examples of leaders doing just that. In March, BCV hosted Vanguard’s Finance Senior Leadership team at our San Francisco office for an Executive Briefing. We were part of a broader “AI trek” across Silicon Valley for Mike, John, and their team, where various venture firms had investors present industry trends and PortCos demo products.

Through these Executive Briefings, exclusive roundtable discussions and BCV’s CFO Advisory Board (50+ CFOs representing companies collectively valued at $360+ billion), we’ve observed thematic objectives that CFOs hope to achieve using AI.

Objectives for the Office of the CFO

While there are (seemingly) innumerable AI-related objectives pegged to enterprise strategic planning initiatives, we’ve heard three themes mentioned persistently across our conversations:

• Increase speed. AI is increasing the efficiency of routine workflows by streamlining approvals, reconciliations and reporting cycles. Instead of needing to wait for monthly or quarterly milestones to generate business insights, financial leaders use real-time learnings. Workflow ‘tailwinds’ supported via AI applications give leaders more time to be strategic vs. in the weeds. All of this improves financial results.
  • Case Study: Aleph x Parachute
    • Parachute Home improves financial reporting efficiency by more than 90% with Aleph. Monthly close reporting was reduced from 1-1.5 days to 20 minutes thanks to Aleph’s flexible data models and direct Excel and Google Sheets integrations. Parachute Home’s head of finance found there were “tons of instances where Aleph saved us two hours here, three hours there, eight hours here.”
• Increase sophistication. In addition to doing things faster, AI enables the Office of the CFO to do things better. There are hundreds of founders creating solutions delivering jaw-dropping predictive analytics and forecasting, AI-assisted anomaly detection and data retrieval at scale.
  • Case Study: Grain x Travel Platform
    • Grain improves both sales and margin for travel providers with smarter FX hedging. Travel providers increase sales by 6-8% through optimized pricing, boost gross margins by more than 15% by eliminating FX markups and securing better rates, and reduce effective pricing 2-4% by dynamically adjusting FX rates in real time.
• Reduce cost. Though not always the case, CFOs frequently ask how Latest Hot Startup will improve the bottom line. What feels different about AI innovation, however, is that shrinking budgets aren’t only coming from technology efficiencies: labor budgets are also in the spotlight. The rise of agentic AI means headcount everywhere is under scrutiny. CFOs look to disruptors like Decagon to both reduce operating expenses with scale and improve outcome quality.
  • Case Study: Decagon x Credit card loyalty program
    • Decagon improves customer experience with credit card customers via agentic customer support. Decagon enabled the credit card provider to achieve a 70-75% ticket resolution rate, 4.1/5 CSAT (higher than humans) and $1.75M (65 human agents) in savings.

Our take: every area under the CFO’s purview is already being disrupted by AI. Here’s what that looks like in action:

• FP&A: More intelligent forecasts and analyses enabled by AI-augmented planning platforms. Check out companies like Pigment, LivePlan and Vareto.
• Accounting: Increased efficiency and accuracy via workflow automation and reduction of manual and repetitive tasks – sometimes using AI agents. Check out companies like Basis, Validis and FloQast.
• Audit: Streamlined financial audits, HITRUST, SOC 2, PCI DSS assessments, and more using AI-powered agents and data integration. Check out companies like Fieldguide, Inflo and DataSnipper.
• Tax & Treasury: Autonomous preparation of highly complex tax forms with AI/ML-powered insights. Check out companies like Black Ore and Rogo.
• Benefits: AI-powered personalized ICHRA health plan recommendations that eliminate coverage inefficiencies and save costs. Check out companies like Thatch and Venture.

AI Adoption is Not a One-Time Event

The above objectives are intuitive, but capturing AI’s full potential depends on a lot more than identifying the right use cases.

The Vanguard Finance Senior Leadership team shared their post-trek reflections on how to build a foundation that sets the organization up for AI-enabled success: 

• Start Early and Evolve
  • Begin experimenting with AI now to create early learnings and evolve use cases as the technology matures
  • Identify and prioritize initial use cases for investment to build a solid foundation based on early wins
• Empower and Upskill the Team
  • Provide teams with the right tools and training to utilize AI effectively in their roles
  • Provide hands-on training opportunities to build knowledge and ensure smooth adoption, emphasizing AI as a helpful tool to support decision-making
• Integrate and Manage Risk
  • Integrate AI into traditional workflows with AI agents on each side of the interaction to enhance efficiency while human workers validate AI outputs and maintain critical thinking skills
  • Stay connected to the VC and start-up ecosystem to keep abreast of rapid advancements and inform risk management best practices

CFOs like Mike Rollings and John Bendl represent the industry’s strongest finance leaders. They do the research to translate AI potential into actionable initiatives, while ensuring the building blocks are in place to maximize adoption and mitigate risk.

The Office of the CFO is one of the teams most impacted by AI across the executive suite – and most conscious of the potential benefits (especially financial) of this evolving technology. Today, it’s impossible to set financial and strategic business plans without a nuanced understanding of AI’s potential across many functions. CFOs are deploying AI to increase speed, increase sophistication and (at times) reduce cost. As AI capabilities mature, CFOs who embrace and operationalize AI thoughtfully will set the pace for innovation and strategic advantage. If you’re a CFO trying to translate this technology into real impact – or a founder building for the Office of the CFO – reach out to Natalie Coletta at ncoletta@baincapital.com.