There are many discussions about the use of artificial intelligence and the future of work. Will it replace workers? Will human creativity be overtaken by bots? How will AI be integrated into financial functions? These are just some of the questions organizations face.
We asked Sayan Chakraborty, co-president of Workday (sponsor of CFO Daily) and head of the product and technology organization, for his take on the balance between technology and human capabilities.
“Workday’s approach to AI and machine learning (ML) is to enhance talent, not replace it,” said Chakraborty. “Our approach intelligently applies automation and provides supporting information and recommendations to ensure that AI can be effectively leveraged while humans control all decision-making.” He added, “When technology and talent work together, companies can strengthen their competitive advantage, be more responsive to their customers, deliver greater economic and social value, and do more in their personal work.” I believe it can create meaning and purpose.”
According to Chakraborty, Workday, which provides enterprise cloud applications for finance and human resources, has been building and delivering AI and ML to its customers for nearly a decade. He holds a seat on the National Artificial Intelligence Advisory Committee (NAIAC), which advises the White House on policy issues related to AI (and, as I have argued many times, Chakraborty has a seat on the NAIAC). (he said he was not at liberty to discuss the work of the committee or speak for the committee). It continues to be an important part of policy discussions in both Europe.”
The future of technology in finance
Chakraborty’s Workday colleague, Terrance Wampler, Workday’s Office of CFO Group General Manager, thinks more about how AI will impact finance. “If you can automate the trading process, there will be less manual intervention and less risk,” Wampler said. Finance executives want technology that not only helps them make data-driven decisions and make internal recommendations faster, but also plays a role in training people with new skills, he said.
Consulting firm Gartner recently released three predictions regarding financial planning and analysis (FP&A), controller capabilities, and technology usage.
– By 2025, 70% of organizations will use data lineage-enabled technologies such as graph analytics, ML, AI, and blockchain as key components of semantic modeling.
– By 2027, 90% of descriptive and diagnostic analytics in finance will be fully automated.
– By 2028, 50% of organizations will replace slow bottom-up forecasting approaches with AI
Workday thinks and implements AI and ML differently than other enterprise software companies, Wampler said. I asked him for an explanation. Enterprise resource planning (ERP) is a type of software that companies use to manage day-to-day business activities such as accounting and procurement. What makes his ERP for Finance and HR at Workday different, he says, is that AI and ML are built into the platform. So ERP isn’t just using AI or ML programs. This is actually an AI and ML construct. And having ML at the foundation of the system means it can adapt more quickly when new ML applications are added. For example, with Workday Financial Management, high-volume transactions can be automated faster, he says.
ML gets better the more you use it, and according to Workday, it has over 60 million users and about 442 billion transactions per year. Therefore, ML improves at a faster rate. The platform can also use AI predictively. Suppose the FP&A team is budgeting for the year. With ML, he says, you can predictively identify why you can hit that budget. Workday also operates both HR and finance in a single cloud-based database. All information he can see in one place. The company has been using large-scale language models, a technology that enables generative AI, for quite some time, Wampler said. Workday will continue to explore use cases where generative AI can add value, he said.
As technology in the financial sector continues to evolve over the next decade, it will definitely be interesting to have a front row seat.
Cheryl Estrada
sheryl.estrada@fortune.com
What’s to come: next luck Addressing the Talent Gap with Advanced Technologies, an emerging CFO virtual event in partnership with Workday (sponsor of CFO Daily), will take place on April 12 from 11:00 am to 12:00 pm ET.Matt Hymer, Feature Editor Executive luckI will also participate. Katie Rooney, CFO of Alight Solutions.and Andrew McAfee, Co-Founder and Co-Director of MIT’s Digital Economy Initiative and Principal Fellow at MIT Sloan School of Management. Click here for more information and to register.
big deal
Accenture report, Race to Cloud: Reaching an Inflection Point in Long-Needed Value, Finds Cloud Efforts Exploding Over the Past Two Years, with More Than 86% of Companies Reporting Cloud Growth I understand that you are. attempt. To assess how companies are approaching the cloud today, Accenture asked companies to describe the current state of their cloud efforts. 68% said they believe their cloud journey is still incomplete. Nearly one-third (32%) of respondents believe they have completed their move to the cloud and are satisfied with their ability to meet their current business goals. However, 41% acknowledge that their cloud initiatives are ongoing and continue to evolve to meet changing business needs. The findings are based on a global survey of 800 business and IT leaders across industries.
get deeper
Deloitte’s new report, Employee Happiness Is Essential, examines three factors that have a significant impact on well-being in today’s work environment. How the organization and work are designed. And how to work beyond the organizational level. Deloitte calls these “determinants of job well-being.”
Leader board
Ann Gugino Mr. Gugino will resign from his position at Papa John’s International, Inc. effective March 22. Gugino will remain an employee of the company until May 31 as a transition period. Papa John’s has interim appointed Chris Collins as Chief Financial Accounting Officer.
Narayan Menon Appointed CFO of Matillion, a data productivity cloud company. Menon has over 25 years of experience in finance and operations. Most recently, Menon served as his CFO at Vimeo Inc., where he helped raise multiple rounds of funding and take the company public in 2021. He has also held senior executive positions at Prezi, Intuit and Microsoft. Menon has also served on the advisory board of the Rutgers University Big Data Program.
tucked in ear
“This was an unusual bank.”
— Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell spoke about Silicon Valley banks at a press conference after the Fed’s decision to raise interest rates by 0.25%, Yahoo Finance reports. Mr. Powell cited the bank’s high proportion of uninsured deposits and its large investments in long-duration bonds. “These are not at all widespread weaknesses in the banking system as a whole,” he said.
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