CFOs are facing a defining moment in the AI era. The question is no longer whether to invest in AI, but how quickly and where it can generate returns. Generative AI has shifted from hype to budget line item, and agentic AI is right on its heels. In parallel, finance leaders are under mounting pressure to understand the business cases for AI that ultimately deliver measurable results as the time for experimentation and pilot programs rapidly closes.

Even with urgency rising, nearly 80 percent of business leaders still find it difficult to determine which AI investments will have the biggest impact. The good news: Companies that zero in on targeted, finance-supported use cases are cutting through this ambiguity and reporting tangible gains. McKinsey finds that a growing share of organizations are realizing revenue impact when GenAI is deployed in business units—evidence that value creation materializes when use cases are well-scoped and close to the work.

Adoption is also rising in finance. Gartner reports that a majority of finance functions used AI in 2024 (58%), with leaders leaning into intelligent process automation and anomaly detection—areas with clear KPIs and short payback windows.

In a sea of AI washing, there are high-ROI opportunities that can enable businesses to capture results in the next two to four quarters. The secret sauce is betting on the right ones.

1. AP automation that compresses cost per invoice and strengthens controls

Why it pays: invoice capture, three-way match, duplicate detection and exception routing are repetitive, rules-driven and data-rich—making them ideal for AI. Benchmarks show a stark spread between manual and automated performers: companies using limited to no automation typically spend nearly $9 to process an invoice, compared to roughly $2 for those who’ve embraced advanced tech.

2. Predictive collections & cash forecasting that free trapped liquidity

Why it pays: AI models trained on customer behavior, disputes and payment patterns can prioritize outreach, recommend promise-to-pay terms and forecast receipts with greater fidelity to drive faster revenue recognition. The Hackett Group’s 2025 U.S. Working Capital Survey highlights the enormous liquidity prize, noting that GenAI-enabled processes are contributing to improvements in cash conversion cycles.

3. Contract intelligence that plugs value leakage and unlocks revenue

Why it pays: contracts encode pricing, obligations and risk for every customer and supplier relationship, but much of that value is stranded in siloed agreements and scattered clauses. World Commerce & Contracting has long flagged “value leakage” from weak contract management, with recent research citing ~15% of contract value at risk—an eye-popping drain for large enterprises. AI companies like Icertis deliver contract intelligence to surface cost-reducing insights like visibility into unrealized discounts, inflation and tariff clauses. This closes the loop between “what we sold/bought” and “what actually happened” to recapture revenue and accelerate cash flow.

From hype to hard numbers

Two decades ago, one in three finance functions directly managed contracts. Today, just one in ten does. In contrast, a recent Blickstein Group survey found that one-third of legal professionals report growing CFO involvement in contracts. CFOs who have capitalized on this opportunity are reaping the rewards:   

• One global pharmaceutical company saved $70 million annually by enforcing commercial terms with contract intelligence for more than 250,000 supplier contracts in 17 languages. ​ 
• A Fortune 100 health insurance company reduced operating expenses by 7% and accelerated time to revenue by reducing contracting cycle times for +150,000 contracts.   
• A European telecom identified $35 million in savings following a merger through supplier contract rationalization efforts, like canceling redundant agreements and consolidating purchasing power.

Icertis is doubling down on these outcomes by enabling today’s finance leaders to realize immediate ROI with Vera Analytics – an AI application that is operational from day one to accelerate time to value with actionable intelligence at enterprise scale. Vera Analytics is designed to uncover revenue leakage and identify savings hidden in contracts by pinpointing opportunities like volume discounts, pass-through costs and price adjustments that the business is entitled to.

The bottom line for CFOs

AI will not rescue unfocused strategies—but it will reward the right ones. Start with a compact portfolio of high-frequency, rules-rich tasks in AP, contracting and collections; instrument them with hard metrics, and iterate with tight human-in-the-loop controls. Done well, these are the places where AI can move from experiment to EBITDA in a single planning cycle. And in 2025 and beyond, that’s the only proof point that matters.