As CFOs marshal their plans for 2026, artificial intelligence is likely to stay at the top of the priority list.

“The pace of technology disruption, the realities of what AI can and can't deliver will be coming into sharper focus as we go into 2026,” Myles Corson, global financial accounting advisory services, strategy and markets leader for Big Four firm Ernst & Young said. For finance chiefs, that means continuing to keep a close eye on the data that feeds into their AI solutions is essential, he said.

“What is the data that matters and how do you put appropriate structures around it as that [volume] continues to expand?” he said in an interview. “Do you understand how it feeds into your system and processes?”

Data governance stays crucial

Finding the right use case for AI has been top of mind for business leaders over the past year, as the technology’s capabilities — and weak points — have continued to solidify.  With AI, “we're at that point in the in the hype cycle where some of the realities and the practicalities are coming into focus,” Corson said.

The number of companies and solutions utilizing AI has ballooned over the past year, leaving finance chiefs wading through a sea of potential tools that can help ease manual and time-consuming processes, such as the financial close. As AI has filtered further into the finance function, however, concerns over its potential downsides have also risen, with inaccurate or fraudulent data or AI-powered “deepfakes” falling under a greater spotlight.

As such, data governance is likely to remain top of mind for finance chiefs as they continue to experiment with the technology. The “more disruption you experience, the more you understand the need to have high quality data governance,” Corson said.  

“There's just a plethora of reasons why having high quality data, understanding those sources and how you apply it becomes even more important” as finance chiefs continue to field economic uncertainty and regulatory and technological change, he said. Having a solid data governance framework will be crucial for the evolving finance function to work effectively, for example.

There’s “a lot of conversations around what the future finance role looks like when you've got potentially less people coming in at the more junior roles, but you still need a significant amount of people with experience of finance and knowledge of the organization,” Corson said.

Being able to interpret the information AI provides swiftly will be critical, especially as “one of the lessons learned is pointing AI at vast volumes of data and trying to synthesize outcomes is a very time consuming, expensive process,” Corson said. “So the more targeted you can be, the more effective and more efficient you're going to be.”

Same old instability

AI’s continued evolution, and the shifting data governance and security needs that go along with it, is just one of several trends that are likely to follow finance chiefs into the new year, where “disruption and transformation is going to be a constant,” Corson said. Heading into 2026, Corson expects “more of the same;” or, in other words, “don’t expect stability,” he said.

In looking forward to 2026, “I think the lesson most CFOs will take away is the need for flexibility” when it comes to navigating ongoing disruption, he said. That puts a premium on having “really robust scenario planning” to ensure they are building resilient organizations, which can respond quickly and smoothly to ongoing changes, he said.

The CFO is “the center of facilitating those conversations” between leadership and making sure “as a C-suite, you've got a point of view on how you would respond,” he said.