Transforming Financial Operations: The Unique Blend of AI and Human Expertise

Artificial intelligence has become a central player in the modern business world. From customer service to talent acquisition to fraud detection, AI is enhancing the capabilities of businesses in every industry, injecting unprecedented speed and efficiency into a wide variety of operations.

As the use of AI has grown, however, so has our understanding of its weaknesses. For instance, while AI excels at automating routine tasks, analyzing vast amounts of data, and providing real-time insights, it lacks the strategic thinking, judgment, and nuanced understanding of business context human experts bring. 

Optimizing the use of AI requires a partnership. While AI-powered tools handle repetitive, data-heavy processes with enhanced levels of precision and speed, human professionals focus their efforts on interpreting insights, making complex decisions, and developing data-driven business strategies. By blending artificial and human intelligence, companies will be able to maximize the output of both.

Unleashing AI in financial operations

Companies that effectively manage their financial operations gain reliable knowledge of where they are and where they can go. Unfortunately, many companies in today’s marketplace fail to consistently and accurately achieve that level of understanding.

The methods used to manage financial operations today are often fragmented, manually processed, and painfully slow. Critical data is spread across scattered spreadsheets and reports, making labor-intensive processes necessary for keeping things on track. Because of the variety of tools in play, the risk of errors is high.

Due to these challenges, monthly bookkeeping is rarely completed in a timely fashion. Consequently, companies don’t have real-time insights into their financial capabilities when they need them most.

AI-powered platforms address each of these pain points. For one, they add automation to the mix, dramatically improving the processing speeds that can be provided by manual entry of receipts, invoices, and other financial statements. Additionally, AI’s automation capabilities expedite processing without sacrificing accuracy, meaning that the risk of errors remains low even as processing speed increases.

The value companies derive from increasing the speed of financial operations cannot be overstated. Regardless of one’s industry or business goals, time is our most valuable asset. By streamlining financial operations, AI gives companies more time to focus on growth.

AI also overcomes the inefficiency caused by financial fragmentation. It provides the capability to bring all of an organization’s data streams together, improving clarity and eliminating the confusion that can frustrate sound decision-making. The true and complete overview of financial activity AI gives companies allows them to operate based on more accurate insights.

Blending human and artificial intelligence to increase potential

Establishing a partnership between artificial and human intelligence is essential to optimizing AI’s impact. The advantages AI brings to a company won’t be realized if its employees aren’t willing to shift into a cooperative and collaborative posture.

Managing this shift can be difficult, however, with reports showing that many people are concerned about the disruptions AI brings to the workplace. A recent survey found that 65 percent of employees are anxious about being replaced by AI, while even more — 72 percent — fear AI use will negatively impact their financial compensation.

Companies must help employees see that AI-driven tools are meant to improve their efforts rather than replace them. By leveraging AI to remove monotonous tasks from employees’ workloads, companies empower their employees to focus on more strategic and impactful work. As AI handles the routine, employees are freed up to act on insights and drive innovation, unlocking new levels of productivity and growth.

Deploying AI in the most appropriate spaces is also crucial to achieving an effective blend. AI can streamline processes in critical areas of financial operations like expense management, bill payments, bookkeeping, and transaction categorization, though human agents will continue to be required in less routine areas.

Fraud detection provides an excellent illustration of the ways human and artificial intelligence can work in tandem. While AI can monitor transactions and identify anomalies in real-time, alerting employees when a threat is detected, assessing the threat’s validity still requires human expertise. In this way, AI manages surveillance so employees can manage the response.

Human collaboration with AI can also be effective for high-level financial planning. AI tools can guide companies on future needs and opportunities by conducting predictive analytics based on historical sales data, economic indicators, and industry trends. A company’s leaders can assess AI’s findings based on human expertise, determine which are valid, and shape long-term strategies to proactively address the challenges and opportunities they feel are likely to evolve.

Embracing the benefits of an AI/human blend

The enhanced capabilities AI-supported financial operations provide are things any type of business, regardless of its size, can benefit from. Large corporations with entire finance teams can use AI to amplify their capabilities by automating workflows and tapping into insights that drive more strategic, data-driven decisions. Small startups can also utilize AI to lay a solid foundation from day one, keeping the focus on growth by leveraging AI to power key automation. 

In all cases, AI brings higher levels of efficiency, accuracy, and insights to financial operations.