Most Finance Teams Still Stuck in AI Pilot Purgatory
Savant Labs surveyed senior finance, tax, and accounting leaders across 22 North American industries. The findings won't surprise anyone who's sat through a vendor demo lately: ambition is high, execution is lagging, and governance remains the blocker nobody wants to talk about.
Seventy-six per cent of respondents plan strategic investment in agentic automation and generative AI this year. Only 30% have functional pilots running. Just 6% report advanced implementation across their teams. The rest are doing single-function experiments or talking about it in budget meetings.
Governance topped the barriers list at 37%. Integration with legacy ERP systems came second at 24%. Cost and ROI concerns ranked three times lower. Translation: teams aren't worried about affording AI. They're worried about auditing it.
Productivity, Not Redundancies
Over 80% of leaders expect headcount to stay flat in 2026. Only 3% anticipate net job growth. That's not a hiring boom. That's pressure to deliver more output with the same people, which is why AI automation remains on the agenda despite implementation friction.
Accounting and finance operations teams are moving first, targeting high-volume repeatable workflows like invoice processing and reconciliation. Tax teams remain cautious, understandably given regulatory exposure.
Context From Elsewhere
NVIDIA's 2026 survey of 800+ financial services professionals found 89% reporting revenue growth or cost reductions from AI, with 64% seeing increases above 5%. AJG's benchmarking data shows 63% of firms have operationalised AI (up from 45% in 2025), though skills shortages remain the top constraint at over 50% of firms.
Deloitte notes that production AI projects are set to double soon, but warns most organisations still spread bets too thin without rigorous governance frameworks.
What This Means
The gap between intention and execution is a governance problem, not a technology problem. Early adopters are standardising governed approaches while others pilot indefinitely. That gap will widen.
Savant's full report includes implementation recommendations. Available at savantlabs.io.