EXPERT INSIGHT | Artificial Intelligence


Knowledge will become interchangeable. Whether you


have it in your brain or at your fingertips. The social skills are going to become much more important


Rob McCargow, director of artificial intelligence at PwC UK,


agrees: “AI will enable FDs to become more strategic, removing the administrative burden and the more repetitive tasks they and their team do, and that’s already starting to come through.” Henner Schliebs global vice president Finance Audience


Marketing at SAP, goes further. He argues that instead of showing where the ship has come from, AI will enable the CFO to take over running the ship itself. Schliebs says: “AI will give FDs the ability to convert trends


into actionable initiatives. This new technology is bigger than anything anyone living on this planet has undergone.” Margaret Thatcher once said, advisers advise and


ministers decide. AI can make suggestions to help the human decision-maker, but it’s the FD who ultimately has to decide what to recommend.


MACHINE LEARNING efore we get too carried away,


B it is important to


remember that AI as we picture it in terms of speaking omniscient talking computers is still science-fiction.


“This is all so new and nascent,” says Christensen. “When people think about AI, they think about self-driving cars and space missions to Mars, but that’s not what AI is good at.” Indeed, Christensen attended a recent meeting in New York of AI experts who concluded there is no evidence that AI will ever displace the human brain


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