Finance's Defining Era: AI in Functional Business Architecture

This IDC Perspective discusses the role of AI in reshaping finance's functional business architecture. Finance is undergoing a transformative era, with AI integration reshaping its functional business architecture. AI's capabilities extend beyond automation, enabling dynamic forecasting, anomaly detection, and autonomous financial processes. Agentic systems, which act with intent and minimal oversight, are revolutionizing finance operations. To harness AI effectively, finance leaders must redesign architectures to ensure traceability, explainability, and governance. By embedding AI into capabilities, value streams, and control layers, businesses can achieve agility, compliance, and strategic advantage, avoiding pitfalls of uncontrolled AI implementation."AI in finance isn't just automation; it's a strategic revolution, redefining capabilities, governance, and collaboration between humans and intelligent systems for unparalleled agility and control." - Heather Herbst, research director, CFO Tech Agenda, IDC.