AI gets the headlines, but it’s not the whole story for finance leaders

Sponsored by Blackbaud

For the 500th episode of the Journal of Accountancy podcast, the show went on the road to the Future of Finance Summit.

The conversation with the AICPA’s Tom Hood, CPA/CITP, CGMA, executive vice president–Business Growth and Engagement, focuses on how finance leaders are moving beyond exploration of artificial intelligence and into active piloting and scaling.

Hood discussed priorities other than AI for finance leaders, who gathered last week in National Harbor, Md. Hood also looked back on the growth of the Future of Finance community, explaining how the “wisdom of the crowd” is one of the event’s big draws.

What you’ll learn from this episode:

• A brief look back at the start of the JofA podcast, which has published 500 episodes.
• What live polling at last week’s Future of Finance Summit revealed about the pace of AI adoption in corporate finance functions.
• Senior finance leaders’ top issues in 2026 other than AI.
• How finance leaders are trying to balance growth initiatives with continued pressure to control costs.
• Why Hood says the Future of Finance community is helping leaders learn faster through case studies, peer collaboration, and shared best practices.
• A look ahead to the 2027 Future of Finance Summit.

Play the episode below or read the edited transcript:

— To comment on this episode or to suggest an idea for another episode, contact Neil Amato at Neil.Amato@aicpa-cima.com.

Transcript

Neil Amato: It was early in 2017 when the Journal of Accountancy podcast published its first episode widely on podcast platforms. It’s been almost 10 years, and today we publish the show’s 500th episode. I’m Neil Amato with the JofA, and you’ll hear more on the milestone after this brief sponsor message.

[Sponsor message]

Amato: Looking back to 2017, some of the topics still resonate now. Early episodes addressed how to make conference attendance pay off, answers to common questions about CPA mobility, and even one episode that had this as a partial title: “Real talk about artificial intelligence.”

Current JofA editor-in-chief Jeff Drew hosted that episode that touched on artificial intelligence, and I’m proud to say we’ll be having Jeff on the podcast in the fall to talk about the return of the Journal of Accountancy‘s print edition. While 500 episodes is absolutely a milestone to celebrate, we’re going to keep providing insights that help move the profession forward. So, on with the show.

Here’s my conversation with Tom Hood, executive vice president–Business Growth and Engagement at the AICPA. We were speaking from the Future of Finance Summit, which brought together leaders in the profession last week just outside Washington, DC.

This is Neil Amato with the JofA. Welcome back to the Journal of Accountancy podcast. I’m joined at the Future of Finance Summit, National Harbor, Md., by Tom Hood. Tom, glad to have you back on the podcast. First of all, thank you for being back on.

Tom Hood: Neil, it’s always a pleasure to be here. Thank you for all you do for us with this podcast and everything that you do, talking about all the major things going on in this exciting profession.

Amato: Yeah, we’re talking about AI a lot at this event. I mean, how could you not?

One finance leader I heard shows up, says, “I feel like we’re behind on our AI initiatives.” He hears a little more. He takes part in the surveys. You have the live polling. He says, “You know what? I might actually feel like we’re a little bit ahead, a little bit ahead of the game.”

So people are realizing this, but you are seeing it, too, that there has kind of been a shift in terms of finance teams and their AI adoption. You want to talk some about that?

Hood: Yeah, no question. I mean, we built this program. So by the way, this is our sixth year. We have record attendance, 180 people. This group, our Future of Finance Leadership Advisory Group, continues to grow, which shocks me six years in. And it’s created this community that is learning together. So the AI piece — now they’re beginning to share stories at what they’re all doing, and that’s accelerating adoption.

And in fact, that was one of our early polls. and we actually are seeing an increase in adoption, almost double, Neil. We went from, it was about 60% in the explorer category a year ago with all the Rise 2040 result. Now this is our global result.

And this year at this session, That went down to about 20% because the pilots doubled up to almost 60%. So 60% of finance teams are actively piloting AI pieces in their finance teams. Then we went even further on what we call the scalers. That doubled from a year ago. So now we’re up in the high 20s of people actually scaling it.

And then when you get into the other part of optimizers, that’s actually double, too. There are 2% who are now optimizing, meaning they’re implementing AI at scale throughout their entire organization. So, those are very promising numbers.

Amato: Yeah, so you have fewer people just saying, yeah, we’re poking around and more people saying, yes, we’re actually doing this.

Hood: Correct.

Amato: I mean, that’s the basic.

Hood: It’s huge.

Amato: Yeah. It’s not just AI. It’s obviously a huge topic, but there are other core insights that have come out of this event. that kind of go hand in hand with some of the insights from Rise 2040, which we talked about the last time you were on the podcast at ENGAGE in Las Vegas. So tell me the latest kind of core insights from this group.

Hood: So we actually opened the conference a couple days ago with me talking about the update on Rise 2040, because it’s only been launched a couple months.

Amato: Yeah, since June.

Hood: Yeah. So we always start with a poll of the top issues. And the top issues now, so 2026, these are the top issues facing senior finance leaders. No surprise, No. 1 is gen AI and AI. No. 2, accelerated digital transformation. No. 3, the need for new skills in finance. No. 4, finding and retaining talent. No. 5 is innovation and growth. And No. 6 is optimizing cost.

So what’s happened is talent moved up one, innovation and growth stayed about where it was, but they added this other kind of paradox of we’re trying to support growth and controlling costs in our businesses. And I think that’s true across that whole community. So that’s what’s driving our Future of Finance group right now. And that sets our agenda for this upcoming year. And then we’ll begin to look at our summit next year.

Amato: Yeah, so cost cutting but also growth. How does that work? And also are the cost concerns, are they diminishing? So are they seeing maybe a little more, I don’t know, economic light?

Hood: So I think this is being driven by the geopolitical environment we have, right? Tariffs, supply chain, disruptions, all those pieces. So businesses are trying to manage their cost side and at the same time find growth levers to support innovation and growth. Very different things, right?

So some of the core businesses might be declining or facing that inflationary pressure, and yet they want to find where they are growing inside that organization and then let those shoots grow. That’s what we’re seeing. And that’s what finance leaders have always said they wanted to do. We’re now seeing them doing it, Neil. That’s the significant piece about innovation and growth coming up that high and cost next step, but that’s all part of that.

Amato: That’s great. What have been some other highlights for you of this Future of Finance Summit?

Hood: Well, I mean, the case studies we’ve had here have been amazing. We have UPS, we had Frontier Airlines. It’s just amazing. The wisdom of the crowd is what I really believe in, Neil, and this community is delivering that. Half of the folks that are speaking are on our Future of Finance Leadership Advisory Group.

So they’re kind of giving us the content with their best practice case studies. And then everyone’s learning from that. And I think that’s what’s making the group really gel so much because they’re really on this learning journey and they’re all trying to out-learn, like hack the learning curve together so they can move faster. And we’re seeing it show up like in AI adoption and some of these other pieces.

Amato: Yeah, I see you taking the pictures. We have the artist, the visual demonstration of what these sessions are about. You’ve got some other names. You got IBM, Estée Lauder, you know, I mean, some great names. And the sessions have been excellent, the case studies. You know, there’s a sense of togetherness too, that they kind of say, “Oh, these are some of the same issues I have. And I thought I was alone in having this issue” and they have it.

Hood: That’s the big one. It can be lonely at the top as a senior finance leader, and being able to come together once a year like this. And then literally, and these are working sessions. You see it, right? They might have the case study presented, but it’s interactive. There’s polling, there’s questions. And then there’s workshops afterwards for everybody to sit there and say, “How do I take this into action?” So it’s about actively helping everybody learn faster than the rate of change.

Amato: So what’s next for this group, the Future of Finance?

Hood: I think we’re going to continue. The formula is working, right? We convened the group. We’ve created community. And now we’re looking at building the content from everybody, so, the wisdom of the crowd. But we’re publishing that.

We’ll be publishing a white paper from this entire summit. We’ll be posting all those boards out for people to look at. And I’ll give you a quick hack. If you take one of those pictures that we post and put it in ChatGPT and tell it to give you the summary of it, you’ll get a really nice write-up that you could send to your teams and say, here’s what they’re talking about.

Amato: That’s great.

Hood: I think that’s our piece is to keep moving the adoption curve, giving them best practices for what they need, So in this journey, where are they trying to get information and what can we do to bring that to them and then keep that going from a community standpoint.

Amato: That’s great. We’ll obviously have upcoming Journal of Accountancy podcast episodes with some of the speakers, some of the members of the Future of Finance Leadership Advisory Group. So, great to be there. I’m going to quickly go through the list [of previous summit venues]. So it’s Nashville, Austin, Orlando, San Diego, Denver. Now we’re in National Harbor. Next year, Chicago.

Hood: Yep, Chicago in August. So get ready, as I think we’ll be publishing it soon. But yeah, we want you to help grow this community and really learn together.

Amato: Again, thanks to Tom Hood. You’ll hear more episodes from the sixth Future of Finance Summit as we get into September and beyond. This is Neil Amato. Thanks for listening to the Journal of Accountancy podcast.