As AI shifts from an experimental trend to an operational necessity, finance leaders are at a critical inflection point. This report captures perspectives from senior finance executives at the OTTO-MATES Executive AI Summit, including Zuora COFO Todd McElhatton, whose keynote “From AI Experimentation to Accountable Impact,” covered the transition that requires redesigning the finance operating model itself rather than just adding new tools.
Explore the report to see how modern finance functions are navigating pressures spanning Data, ROI, Risk, and Culture.
You’ll learn about:
- The Data Readiness Gap: Why AI exposes weak data foundations and how mature teams are building finance-owned data infrastructure.
- The ROI of Amplification: How to move beyond the automation narrative to multiply team capacity and strategic contribution.
- Continuous Assurance: Why traditional sampling is colliding with AI and how to transition toward real-time, continuous validation and governance.
- Psychological Safety as Infrastructure: How leadership modeling and aligned incentives overcome the “cognitive burden” of rapid AI adoption.
- The AI-Native Maturity Model: A framework to assess your organization’s progress from fragmented exploration to embedded AI fluency.
