Survey: AI Tools Add Value But Infrastructure Concerns Remain

The results of a recent Workiva survey of 2,300 finance/accounting, sustainability, internal audit/risk, legal/compliance, and operations professionals across the globe suggest that AI tools are moving the needle in a fairly significant way at the corporate level.  Here are some of the highlights:

– 88% of practitioners reported increases in ROI, as well as time savings (96%), cost savings (91%), and productivity (94%) through the use of AI tools.

– Those with deeply integrated AI were more likely to report they were reinvesting the time savings in advancing sustainability initiatives (39% vs. 28%), accelerating product or service innovation (36% vs. 27%), and improving customer experience (37% vs. 29%).

– Sustainability professionals were more likely than finance and accounting peers to say AI helps them quickly consume large volumes of data to help them benchmark disclosures against peers (64% vs. 52%) and tackle time consuming or manual tasks (61% vs. 52%).

However, the survey also found some significant concerns about the maturity of AI infrastructure.  Only about one-third of respondents said that their companies had  having critical elements in place to security unlease AI’s full potential. Only 36% of respondents said that they had high quality data to work with, while only 35% said their companies had AI governance/security policies and only 33% said they had received role-specific training.

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone & try not to overcook your turkey!  We’ll be off for the balance of the week.  Our blog will return on Monday.