“The role of the finance function is evolving and is increasingly expected not only to focus on reporting, but also to influence business strategy, as it has the information and the vision of all parts of the company,” he said. said this morning Almudena Pérez-Villamil, technology and transformation partner at Deloitte in his opening speech of the working day “The role of the CFO as a strategic partner of the company”, organized by elEconomista.es.
He also commented in his presentation entitled “The role of AI in the financial function” that in the last two years we have seen the growing application of artificial intelligence in the financial field, something that actually dates back to the 1940s and which allows the analysis and processing of large volumes of data. According to Pérez-Villamil, The recent boom in the use of AI is due to its greater accessibility.
At Deloitte, strategy has focused on analyzing each function in the organization, recognizing that “each function has different needs,” the consultancy says. Regarding the use of artificial intelligence, the directive explains that each entity is in a different implementation phase: “In this AI journey, each entity is at a different stage,” he pointed out. While some companies are just beginning to study the possibilities of AI, others are already applying it to specific uses and even experiencing success.
Within the financial function, Deloitte has identified various areas where AI can have a significant impact, such as tax, regulation, profitability, planning and budgeting, investor relations, internal audit, accounting and transactional finance , as well as financial consolidation.. “For certain processes, AI allows us to automate at lower cost and also more agile,” he explained, emphasizing that saving time has an impact on cost optimization.
Pérez-Villamil highlighted AI’s ability to improve efficiency by automating tasks and interactions, reducing process costs and time. He also highlighted the benefits in decision-making, emphasizing that technology allows us to detect patterns, link correlated events and predict outcomes, thereby improving overall business understanding.
In addition, Deloitte observes a transformation of the way teams interact with systems, thanks to intelligent text, image and sound generation tools. According to the company, this not only facilitates daily operations but also opens doors to innovation by inspiring new ideas, products and business opportunities. They also believe that AI can contribute to fraud risk reduction, cybersecurity and data protection, thereby protecting organizations in today’s digital environment.
When discussing the use of generative artificial intelligence, Pérez-Villamil explained that it relies on “working with language models”. However, he specified that these general models must be enriched with different types of information: “with public data which improves market knowledge”, as well as information specific to the client which allows a more precise adaptation to their needs. He further emphasized the importance of the know-how that Deloitte has accumulated after years of experience in the financial fieldwhich helps optimize the value of these models.
Pérez-Villamil emphasized that one of Deloitte’s main goals is to carefully define the use cases in which AI is needed: “We are looking for something that is feasible and reasonably costed, so that we can see a return on investment and benefit,” he noted. The bet, he said, is still strategic, since AI can have a significant impact in key areas of the finance function.such as reviewing and generating memories or the ability to interact more directly with data.
“Talk to your data,” he suggested as an example of how AI enables financial queries in natural language, making information easier for users to access. However, he recognized that the integration of these tools constitutes a challenge for the finance function, since it is not a question of replacing current systems, but rather of implementing “more efficient and more reliable” solutions. The final objective is to help both the CEO and the company in general to identify new opportunities and to support companies in facing the challenges of the years to come.
