Friday, 21 August 2026
The CFO's New Role: Steering the Value of Artificial Intelligence
Artificial intelligence (AI) is no longer just a technological promise confined to R&D teams. It has become a concrete lever for performance, productivity, and transformation across the enterprise. But be careful — investing in AI is easy; creating value from it is not. Behind these ambitions lies a persistent reality: deploying AI requires capital, team mobilization, and the full involvement of the CFO (Chief Financial Officer).
"Companies invest in the tools, but not in the conditions that allow those same tools to produce value," says Benjamin Commault, Vice President of Data & AI at Talan Americas, right from the outset. He stresses the importance of securing and monetizing AI-related initiatives across the organization.
"Pilots keep multiplying, costs keep rising, and meaningful economic impact remains the exception rather than the rule. The goal should be operational excellence — rigorously measuring productivity gains rather than switching on technology tools without proper monitoring in place."
When Technology Alone Isn't Enough...
Companies often end up managing several AI projects, each in its own silo. "We recommend a centralized approach instead — one that unifies the strategy at the enterprise level." Usually seen as a purely IT mandate, AI governance would actually be better placed under the CFO's responsibility.
The CFO remains best positioned to bring every variable of the equation together. "The CFO who stands out in 2026 isn't necessarily the one who invests the most in technology tools, but the one who puts a structured method in place to guarantee their value," the expert explains.
So the problem isn't a lack of technical skill — it's the absence of an integrated system within the organization. Talan's AI Value Assurance can help transform your AI investments into assets with measurable returns.
Artificial Intelligence: The 4 Pillars of Success
The organizations getting the best results today have built the right conditions to turn AI into a genuine business lever. For Benjamin Commault, the four pillars identified by Talan need to be interconnected to form a solid foundation. "Taken individually, these elements produce pilots that go nowhere. Integrated as a system, these pillars produce the value you're actually looking for," he says.
Data Quality
To produce relevant analyses, reliable forecasts, or useful recommendations, AI needs structured, secure, and consistent data to work from. Without that foundation, results risk being not just imprecise, but outright counterproductive. "It's about ensuring the integrity of the information that business decisions will be built on."
Clear Governance
Companies need to define what AI can do, within what limits, and under what rules — the goal being to avoid unchecked, uncontrolled proliferation of use cases. "For example, your employees may already be using personal AI tools in their daily tasks, without any official oversight. This parallel adoption can accelerate certain short-term gains, but it also exposes the company to significant risks around security, data privacy, and compliance."
Real Adoption Within Operations
An AI initiative only has value if it's integrated into the right workflows and actually used by teams on the ground. The CFO must actively steer the portfolio of AI initiatives and quickly assess the real operational gains. "When a project isn't delivering the expected results, it's better to reallocate resources quickly toward higher-potential use cases."
Ongoing Cost-to-Value Tracking
AI brings cost variability that the CFO has to account for. "In a context where technology investments can pile up quickly, the CFO plays a central role in distinguishing promising experiments from spending with no tangible return."
Your Responsibility: Guaranteeing the Value
As guardian of the budget and arbiter of business priorities, the CFO is the central figure for assessing risk, measuring impact, and ensuring AI initiatives generate lasting value — a tangible return on investment — for the organization. "It's not enough to just hold the purse strings. You need both hands on the wheel. The CFO has to combine two critical roles: chief financial steward, and guarantor of value," concludes Benjamin Commault.
What's your organization's AI maturity level? And more importantly, how many of your current initiatives are generating measurable value?
AI Value Assurance
AI Value Assurance is a program built in three phases: vision and activation, early wins, industrialization at scale. Every step delivers something concrete, from day one.
Allocate capital strategically, discontinue what isn't paying off, manage AI as a portfolio of assets, and defend the results.