From Deloitte’s CFO Signals Series.
As organizations scale artificial intelligence across the enterprise, finance leaders are being asked to approve increasingly significant investments while managing costs that can be volatile, difficult to forecast, and challenging to control. New findings indicate that many organizations could benefit from greater real-time visibility, advanced AI-specific controls, and rapid-response capabilities to manage spending effectively once these technologies go live.
For chief financial officers, the challenge is no longer simply deciding what to fund; it is building the cost governance and discipline important to scaling AI responsibly.
These insights come from Deloitte’s third-quarter 2026 CFO Signals Survey, which polls 200 CFOs from North American organizations with annual revenues of at least US$1 billion each quarter. The survey findings align with the Deloitte Finance Trends 2027 research, which found that many finance leaders are taking on expanded responsibilities for AI trust, capital allocation, and cost management.
With leaders in the Trends report anticipating greater cost and complexity through 2027, finance organizations may need to increase the sophistication of their approaches to AI cost governance.
AI cost volatility can undermine CFO coordination
Nearly 80% of respondents to the CFO Signals Survey indicate that finance has a formal role in their organizations’ AI-related decisions, with 38% defining or administering the evaluation framework and 41% serving as required approvers. That compares with 20% who provide just cost, budget, or accounting guidance but do not shape the decision. For many, these are relatively new responsibilities. The Finance Trends research found that more than two-thirds of leaders who oversee AI trust, capital allocation, or cost management took on an owner or approver role within the past three years.
Continue reading at the CFO Signal Series.
CFOs signal AI cost-governance gaps | Deloitte Insights
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