AI Finance Consulting: The Company Doctor
Key Points
- The speaker likens consultants to doctors, explaining that both diagnose problems and prescribe solutions to improve the health of their clients—whether people or companies.
- For a finance organization, the “check‑up” reveals pain points such as inflation, geopolitical uncertainty, and evolving regulations that threaten productivity and profitability.
- Scaling AI across the finance function is presented as the optimal treatment plan, delivering higher ROI and turning finance teams into top‑performing, strategic assets.
- Traditional AI (e.g., robotic process automation) automates repetitive, rule‑based tasks like data collection and document summarization, executing them far faster than humans.
- Generative AI goes a step further by using deep‑learning models to create new content and insights—such as drafting analyses or reports—allowing finance professionals to work more efficiently and focus on higher‑value decision‑making.
Full Transcript
# AI Finance Consulting: The Company Doctor **Source:** [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNXOCsL9OF8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNXOCsL9OF8) **Duration:** 00:10:54 ## Summary - The speaker likens consultants to doctors, explaining that both diagnose problems and prescribe solutions to improve the health of their clients—whether people or companies. - For a finance organization, the “check‑up” reveals pain points such as inflation, geopolitical uncertainty, and evolving regulations that threaten productivity and profitability. - Scaling AI across the finance function is presented as the optimal treatment plan, delivering higher ROI and turning finance teams into top‑performing, strategic assets. - Traditional AI (e.g., robotic process automation) automates repetitive, rule‑based tasks like data collection and document summarization, executing them far faster than humans. - Generative AI goes a step further by using deep‑learning models to create new content and insights—such as drafting analyses or reports—allowing finance professionals to work more efficiently and focus on higher‑value decision‑making. ## Sections - [00:00:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNXOCsL9OF8&t=0s) **Consultants as Company Doctors** - A finance transformation leader likens consulting to medical care, using the doctor analogy to illustrate how AI‑driven solutions diagnose and treat finance‑function challenges, thereby enhancing productivity, profitability, and overall organizational health. ## Full Transcript
[Music]
coming from a family of doctors I often
find myself trying to explain to them
what I do for a living during one such
conversation with my niece she came up
with the perfect way to describe my role
as a consultant she said Consultants are
like doctors for companies doctors help
people improve their health by
diagnosing and treating their medical
issues and Consultants help
organizations achieve success by finding
solutions for their business challenges
ultimately both roles aim to improve the
overall well being of their respective
clients let's say today's client is your
Finance organization and it's time for a
checkup welcome to AI Academy my name is
Monica pry and I'm the global Finance
transformation leader or the finance
company doctor for IBM Consulting during
your initial screening I assessed
several pain points inflation
geopolitical uncertainty and rapidly
changing regulatory standards may be
hurting your business if we don't find a
solution your productivity and
profitability will be negatively
impacted how can we address these issues
and protect your organization's health
for an embattled Finance function AI
optimization is the optimal treatment
plan research shows that when
organizations scale AI across the
finance function they tend to become top
performers and Achieve higher Roi this
should come as no surprise as Finance
plays a vital role in the Enterprise
it's the Beating Heart of your
organization allocating resources across
the business to power your operations AI
technology helps to optimize the
workflows and processes that drive the
finance function through Automation and
content generation traditional AI
automates routine labor intensive tasks
such as data collection document
summarization and pattern recognition
traditional AI systems are designed to
perform specific tasks based on
deterministic algorithms set by your
organization for example an AI infused
tool like robotic process automation or
RPA follows predefined scripts and
workflows that represent the task
process from start to finish in doing so
the AI performs these simple repetitive
tests at an exponentially faster rate
offering Finance organizations an
overwhelming competitive advantage or
you might use RPA to automate data
collection for financial reports RPA can
capture and make sense of key
information in an instant allowing you
to quickly gain new insights and make
informed decisions traditional AI does
routine tasks for you so you don't have
to generative AI on the other hand does
complex tasks with you so you can work
more efficiently gen helps you create
content using deep learning models these
models analyze your existing data learn
its common patterns and structures then
use that information to generate
something brand new using prompts like
specific queries or instructions you can
guide and refine your gen content as
needed consider how much time you might
spend creating a financial analysis in
Excel you have to gather and input data
from multiple sources build charts and
pivot tables to visualize the results
then format it all into a stakeholder
ready presentation that's roughly half a
days worth of work minimum you could
spend 50% of your day sorting through
spreadsheets or you could spend 10% of
your day prompting a gen model to help
you create what you would need in a
fraction of the time instead of spending
hours on data entry and Designs let's
say you decided to use geni it quickly
ingests and structures your financial
data provides you with relevant insights
and packages everything in a presentable
sharable format how much time do you
think it took to create your financial
anal Anis using gen even if you spent a
few hours coming up with different
prompts and polishing your presentation
to suit your preferences you've still
saved days of Labor by augmenting your
work with Gen and that's not the only
value it brings to the table geni is
completely revolutionizing the role of
Finance across Industries it's
accelerating the abilities of
traditional Ai and making this seemingly
impossible possible gen can rapidly
detect anomalies explain variant es
generate scenarios create reports and
manage accounts for the first time ever
we're able to automate complex workflows
tasks and processes at speed AI
technology is capable of so much more
and if you're searching for use cases to
prove its value to your Finance
organization the wealth of opportunities
may seem like Choice overload so where
should you start where's the best place
to focus your efforts of the four key
Finance workflows order to cash
Financial Planning and Analysis record
to report and procure to pay Financial
Planning and Analysis will see the
biggest impact from AI technology this
domain is where you budget forecast and
analyze your financial performance
through a combination of traditional Ai
and geni capabilities you can make
faster more accurate decisions the
faster you're able to make decisions the
faster you can create action plans that
impact sales marketing and Supply chains
traditional AI can automate the data
aggregation process which is often
tedious and labor intensive Genai can
provide cost cutting recommendations
detect patterns and anomalies and create
Dynamic scenarios and market performance
comparisons these capabilities allow you
to explore simulated outcomes without
impacting your business to get the most
out of your AI Investments it may be why
wise to start your journey with the
financial planning and Analysis use case
speaking of Journeys the further along
you are in your AI Journey the more you
gain from your Investments organizations
that have implemented AI report an 18%
Roi those that have operationalized ai
report a 24% Roi and organizations that
have optimized AI report a whopping 51%
Roi despite its Quantified able benefits
Finance organizations have been slow to
integrate AI into their daily operations
many CFOs are skeptical of AI technology
they're concerned about data security
risk governance biases inaccuracies and
the potential for significant loss of
shareholder value the truth is AI isn't
perfect but by implementing robust
security protocols establishing clear
governance structures and monitoring and
adjusting AI models as needed CFOs can
mitigate the risks that come with
incorporating new technology
professionals across every industry are
also skeptical due to fears of being
replaced by gen aai on the contrary the
purpose of AI technology optimization is
to help humans do their jobs more
effectively AI adopters attribute 40% of
Finance function Workforce redeployment
to gen as a result human workers are
more empowered to learn new skills and
focus on higher value strategic tasks
organizations looking to adopt AI need
to heavily invest in training to equip
their Finance teams with knowledge about
machine learning data science and agile
techniques the goal is not to turn
Finance professionals into technology
experts it's to help humans work in
concert with technology AI democratizes
information and expertise it's
essentially a form of digital labor
designed to ease the jobs of human
workers
with training on how to properly use AI
technology Finance professionals can use
it for human augmented value creation to
optimize Genai and become an AI first
Finance organization you're going to
need buyin from your team stakeholders
and Business Leaders presenting a use
case like AI for financial planning and
Analysis is an effective step towards
facilitating digital transformation
finding the best use case depends on
strategic alignment the impact of AI the
opportunity to scale pervasively and the
team's Readiness to transform before you
begin your search you'll want to ask a
few questions what are you trying to
achieve with AI is it growth
productivity control accuracy will the
use case Advance your strategic goals
will AI have an impact that leads to
better decisions will applying AI change
decision-making and finally how will
adopting a hybrid operating Model A
human and digital Workforce impact your
business most often this is where
organizations fail answering these
questions will help you map out your
strategic vision and with that you can
pilot AI technology that aligns with
your business needs this is your chance
to start using an understanding AI
before you scale Finance leaders ready
to scale should build their traditional
AI technology around key financial
workflows processes and initiatives then
add gen to supercharge these new
capabilities oftentimes Finance
organizations can't keep up with the
rapidly changing Ambitions of a business
that's always trying to stay competitive
in the market think about cloud-based
subscription organizations marketing and
business functions are coming up with
new services and adding new business
models it becomes a nightmare for
finance to try consuming and parsing
through data while keeping up with a
changing Revenue models and different
fee structures all of which imp Revenue
recognition this is a good place to
start using gen AI something in the low
variability box like an agent or an
assistant to help ingest and summarize
documents gen AI can parse through this
information answer questions generate
insights and explain the patterns that
work and those that don't now you know
how and where AI can benefit your
organization so let's wrap up your visit
with the finance company doctor a
healthy heart circulates blood
throughout your body to supply you with
oxygen and nutrients in much the same
way a strong Finance function
distributes resources across your
organization to fund key initiatives and
improve strategic decision-making AI
technology optimizes The crucial
workflows and processes at the Strategic
core of the finance function which leads
to faster more successful outcomes for
the rest of your business