Let’s have an honest conversation about AI in FP&A—one that’ll probably get me uninvited from a few conferences.
Most of what’s being sold as “AI-powered insights” is vaporware dressed up in machine learning buzzwords.
I’ve built and sold multiple SaaS companies. I’ve sat on both sides of the vendor table. And I’ve spent the past two years watching our industry trip over itself trying to convince CFOs that AI will replace their FP&A analysts. Every vendor pitch promises the same fantasy: “Our AI automatically generates forecasts, predicts outcomes and provides strategic insights!”
It’s nonsense. And it’s expensive nonsense at that.
Everyone Knows It (But Nobody’s Saying It)
Here’s what nobody wants to admit in those industry panels we all sit through: AI cannot replace your FP&A analysts. Not today. Not in five years. Probably not in 10.
Why? Because the hard part of FP&A isn’t crunching numbers—it’s understanding context.
AI doesn’t know that Q3’s revenue dip happened because your biggest customer delayed a purchase order due to some internal political mess on their end. It doesn’t know which cost centers are untouchable because of executive relationships that go back 15 years. It can’t tell you which of the thousand possible scenarios actually matter for your board presentation next week.
AI models are probabilistic. Finance is deterministic. “Approximately correct” doesn’t work when you’re presenting a $50M capex plan to the board. And “the AI said so” isn’t an explanation. It’s an excuse that’ll get you laughed out of the room.
What Vendors Won’t Tell You (But I Will)
Here’s the uncomfortable truth about “AI-powered FP&A” that I’ve learned from actually operating in this space: A lot of it is sophisticated automation wrapped in machine learning buzzwords.
I’ve been in hundreds of these vendor meetings. Next time one of them demos their “revolutionary AI insights,” try asking:
- “Show me the model architecture.”
- “What’s your training data?”
- “What’s the confidence interval on this prediction?”
I’ll tell you exactly what happens. They’ll squirm a bit, then pivot to “proprietary algorithms” and “competitive advantages.”
Translation: They’ve got nothing.
The vendors who are using real AI? They’re often solving the wrong problem entirely. They’re trying to automate strategic judgment—the hard part that humans excel at—while ignoring the infrastructure bottlenecks where AI could actually deliver value today. It’s like building a self-driving car that’s brilliant at going straight but hasn’t got a clue where to go.
The Real Problem (That Nobody’s Fixing Because It’s Not Sexy)
Want to know what actually prevents finance teams from delivering strategic value? Infrastructure that keeps talented analysts trapped doing tactical work.
The industry is busy chasing headlines with “AI analysts that think like humans.” Grand stuff. Meanwhile, actual finance teams are dealing with:
- Implementations that drag on for months before delivering any value whatsoever.
- Endless data reconciliation between systems that should talk to each other but don’t.
- Manual consolidation eating 20+ hours every single week.
- Talented analysts—people who went to good schools and have strategic brains—doing work that computers should handle.
- Strategic questions that can’t be answered in real time because the infrastructure won’t support it.
This is the actual problem. You’ve got brilliant people either sitting idle or doing grunt work. And the industry’s response? “But look, our AI can generate a forecast!”
Lovely. Who cares if your team can’t get the infrastructure working well enough to trust those forecasts in the first place?
Your Analysts Just Got More Valuable (And Vendors Hate This)
Here’s the irony that should terrify every software vendor: In a world of AI, strategic judgment becomes more valuable, not less.
When information is abundant and cheap, asking the right questions becomes priceless. When models can generate a thousand scenarios, knowing which three actually matter—that’s what separates insight from noise.
Your FP&A analysts aren’t data processors. They’re context translators who understand what leadership actually needs. They’re strategic interpreters who know which variables you can actually control versus which ones you’re just pretending to control. They simplify complexity into choices you can act on. They provide certainty when everything else is uncertain.
AI can’t do this, won’t be able to for years. Anyone telling you otherwise is trying to sell you something.
The One Question Every CFO Should Ask
Next time a vendor pitches you on their “AI-powered FP&A solution,” ask them this: “Does your AI understand my business context better than my analysts do?”
Not “can it forecast?” Not “can it detect patterns?”
Does it understand the political dynamics? The institutional knowledge? The strategic nuances that make your business different from the one next door?
If they say yes, they’re overselling and you should walk. If they say, “not yet, but soon,” they’re guessing and you should probably walk. If they say “no, and that’s why your analysts matter”—well, they might actually be worth talking to.
What AI Should Actually Do (From Someone Who’s Built This Stuff)
AI is powerful. I’ve seen it work brilliantly. But only when you apply it to the right problems.
The most valuable applications of AI in FP&A aren’t the sexy ones making headlines. They’re infrastructure improvements that free your analysts to do what they’re actually good at:
- Let AI handle data integration—it excels at that.
- Let it automate consolidation and reconciliation where it’s reliable and auditable.
- Let your analysts handle strategic judgment where humans dominate and always will.
- Use better automation to eliminate the months-long implementation nightmares that kill projects before they start.
Not revolutionary. Just honest about what works.
What the Real AI Revolution Looks Like
I’ve seen the real AI revolution in finance, and here’s what it actually looks like:
Your analysts spend less time fighting spreadsheets and more time answering strategic questions. They test scenarios in real time instead of promising to “get back to you next week” (by which point the decision’s already been made without them). They become the co-pilots CEOs actually need—not because they worked harder or got smarter, but because infrastructure finally stopped getting in their bloody way.
That’s the promise. Not replacement. Liberation.
The question isn’t whether AI will transform FP&A. It’s whether vendors will use AI to solve problems that actually matter to finance teams versus problems that look good in pitch decks.
The Bottom Line
Your analysts aren’t the bottleneck. Your infrastructure is.
You’ve got talented people capable of strategic work. You’ve got business problems that desperately need solving. What’s standing between them isn’t a lack of AI—it’s systems that force strategic thinkers to spend their days as data janitors.
Fix the infrastructure. Eliminate the drudgery. Then watch what your team can accomplish when they’re actually free to do real work instead of fighting with tools that should work but don’t.
