For decades, the finance partner’s edge was Excel wizardry. Now, anyone can query data in plain English and get instant answers. The skills that once defined the role are being automated, and the pace of change is accelerating.
AI isn’t threatening the finance partner — it’s redefining them. The real question is whether we’ll adapt fast enough to stay relevant.
For years, finance partners have been the bridge between numbers and the business — interpreting reports, running scenarios, and advising leaders. But as AI tools become capable of producing insights, forecasts, and even recommendations at speed, the traditional role is shifting.
The impact of AI means we will have fewer finance partners, servicing wider areas of the organisation, working alongside automation, intelligent agents, and AI analysts. The finance partner’s role will move away from producing and interpreting data and toward acting as the “human in the loop” — validating AI insights, adding context, and guiding decisions.
From Reporting to Interpreting
Today, much of a finance partner’s time is spent downloading data, refreshing reports, deep-diving into anomalies, and presenting options back to the business — often through endless PowerPoint iterations.
Even when the analysis is complete, it rarely ends there. Once a piece of work has been produced, someone will inevitably ask for it again in a slightly different format.
This manual effort is time-consuming: pulling data from multiple sources, combining them in fragile Excel models, copying formulas, checking links, and validating outputs.
Within five years, however, most of this will be obsolete.
Automation tools like Analysis360 or Alteryx will refresh data overnight, pulling directly from sources such as GCP, Azure, and AWS through low-code/no-code tools like BigQuery. These will combine the data through repeatable, reliable flows. AI agents will then review the results, update forecasts, and deliver insights straight to your inbox — complete with analysis of drivers and suggested interventions.
Any further analysis can be requested through plain-language prompts to the AI analyst. Partners will be able to model scenarios, explore subsets of data, and refine recommendations interactively — in moments.
The finance partner’s role will shift to interpreting outputs, adding context the data cannot capture, and helping leaders make better-informed decisions. Less time collating, more time guiding.
In a world where anyone can query data in plain English, there is little value in being the Excel wizard.
From Gatekeeper to Guide
Historically, finance has acted as a gatekeeper — controlling budgets, enforcing rules, and flagging overspend. AI threatens to make this transactional role redundant.
Where today’s partners produce periodic forecasts based on limited data, AI will forecast in real time across multiple dimensions, using millions of data points. Overnight analysis powered by machine learning will not only show when performance is drifting in the moment, but also highlight where the year-end trajectory is at risk.
AI agents will propose intervention options for finance partners to review, refine, and present back to the business.
Agentic AI will also strengthen controls — monitoring expense claims for anomalies, spotting unusual accounting entries, and highlighting risks before failures occur.
The finance partner of the future won’t guard the gates. They will guide the journey — helping teams explore options, test ideas, and apply financial insight as a tool for growth.
What the Human in the Loop Brings
AI is brilliant at spotting patterns, but poor at meaning. It can tell you sales are 10% below forecast, simulate the year-end impact, and suggest potential actions. It can even draft the presentation and schedule the meeting.
But it cannot explain how those numbers feel on the shop floor, or how a single customer interaction might reveal the root cause.
That’s your role: to turn AI’s raw insights into narratives that leaders can act on — connecting numbers to people, strategy, and behaviour.
The finance partner’s role will become more human. It will require a different skill set than today: simply presenting the numbers won’t be enough. Partners will need to tell the story, provide insight and guidance, and build relationships that give them context beyond the data — enabling meaningful input into decision-making.
What humans still bring:
- Judgement – AI highlights risks; humans decide which matter most.
- Relationships – Trust, influence, and constructive challenge can’t be automated.
- Creativity – Turning financial insights into strategic opportunities is a uniquely human skill.
Resistance is Futile
If you’re a finance partner, don’t fight AI — embrace it. Let the machines take on the grunt work, and use that freedom to move higher up the value chain.
You should be asking yourself in every instance: “How can I use AI to make this better?” And you should start today. Adopt an AI-first mindset now. If you don’t yet have access to applications like Copilot or ChatGPT, get them. Start experimenting. Learn what good prompts look like.
When I joined the industry over 20 years ago, those who could make Excel sing stood out. I built the first five years of my career on the ability to model and report data quickly and accurately with advanced formulas. Excel skills quickly became the differentiator: if you couldn’t make a spreadsheet fly, you couldn’t add value, and the tool is now embedded throughout finance and beyond.
This shift will be just as seismic.
The organisations that thrive won’t be the ones with the smartest algorithms. They’ll be the ones with partners who know how to use AI as a tool, how to make it sing (although maybe not literally) — while staying human enough to lead with empathy, judgement, and vision.
Ask yourself: are you still proving your worth by producing reports, or are you ready to become a strategic guide?
Because the future finance partner won’t be the one crunching the numbers — it will be the one who turns them into action.
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