Growth remains the top strategic business priority for both CFOs and CEOs, according to a survey by Gartner, which says 45% of CEOs ranked growth in their Top 3 strategic priorities while 62% of CFOs put it in their Top 3 .
“Balancing future growth investments and CEO expectations, while still tightly managing cost and cashflow, is the tightrope CFOs must walk in the back half of 2023,” says Alexander Bant, chief of research with the Gartner Finance practice.
“Five forces are driving CFOs and CEOs to prioritise conversations about AI in the third quarter,” says Bant. “First, boards and CEOs expect C-suite leaders to protect the organisation while driving broad use case adoption. Second, customers continue to leverage generative AI in their daily life, moving their expectations for user experience. Third, employees are concerned about job loss, yet may eventually leave organisations where they can’t fully leverage generative AI.
As CFOs and CEOs face concerns about the effects of inflation and a potential recession, they’re pursuing options beyond the typical approach of raising prices, with CFOs joining CEOs in demonstrating a new open-mindedness towards other tactics.