2026 has been another eventful year for finance leaders. AI has moved from experimentation to practical applications, while economic uncertainty, shifting trade dynamics, and growing regulatory complexity have continued to challenge finance teams.
We’ve gone back to some of the Next Gen Finance Leaders we’ve previously featured to find out what stood out to them in 2026 and what they expect to see in 2027. Their answers highlight rapid change, but also the enduring importance of strong processes, human judgment, and adaptability.
Key Takeaways
- As historical reporting is increasingly automated, finance leaders see their role shifting toward being an integral part of company decision-making.
- In 2027, finance leaders expect more AI-native finance departments, rationalized tech stacks, and a harder look at inefficient processes.
- The strongest teams will pair AI with human judgment and professional skepticism to stay agile as geopolitics, trade, and regulation continue to shift.
What Finance Leaders Learned in 2026
The Biggest Shift Is Still Ahead
Sophie Conaghan, Fractional Finance Director and Founder of Finance For Founders, spent much of the year reviewing the wealth of AI-related content emerging across the finance ecosystem to understand which tools could deliver genuine, practical value. Despite the rapid pace of technological change, she found that AI’s impact on day-to-day accounting and finance is still taking shape.
A huge amount changed in the world around us, but realistically, not much has changed yet in how accounting and finance actually works day to day. At least, not yet for now.
Sophie Conaghan, Fractional Finance Director and Founder, Finance For Founders
Industry Incumbents Are Ripe for Disruption
Tas Mustafa, Director and Owner of Barnes & Scott, a public practice supporting technology startups, has spent plenty of time this year exploring new technology tools.
I’ve been keeping a close eye on new players in the sector and how many have started outperforming some of the larger industry incumbents, who have become slower to adapt to the latest technology and innovations.
Tas Mustafa, Director and Owner, Barnes & Scott
Don’t Be Afraid to Reinvent Yourself
This year, Joseph Falcao took the leap to consolidate his three decades of finance experience and start his own fractional CFO and advisory business for private equity-backed companies.
2026 was a year of reinvention. Once you take the leap, you’ll never look back. Establishing your own practice gives you flexibility to focus on the areas of finance you enjoy most.
Joseph Falcao, Founder, Falcon Pax
Be Ready to Rip Up the Plan
The pace of AI development and adoption led Christian Sanford, Managing Partner at QuantFi, a full-stack strategic finance agency, to expand the firm’s service offering beyond outsourced finance functions and into AI implementation.
People didn’t start using AI for finance work until Q1 of this year, so 2026 looks nothing like the plan we wrote in the middle of last year. Every real gain has come from what the models build alongside human experts.
Christian Sanford, Managing Partner, QuantFi
Human Skepticism Still Matters
Howard Thompson, CEO and Founder of GATHER.nexus, a platform that makes it easier to manage multi-entity businesses in the cloud, also cites the growing influence of AI in finance. While he is seeing the benefits himself, he thinks that finance leaders need to be skeptical and apply their human expertise to challenge outputs and review exceptions and anomalies.
AI has had a major impact, particularly with the rise of vibe coding and AI agents. It’s also important to maintain a healthy dose of professional skepticism. AI is probabilistic by design, meaning it naturally generates variable outputs, unlike deterministic software. This matters when choosing technologies and the level of human oversight needed.
Howard Thompson, CEO and Founder, GATHER.nexus
Agility Is Essential
Sabrina Carrión, Global Accounts Payable Manager at Atlas HXM, has seen firsthand how geopolitics is creating an increasingly unpredictable economic outlook and highlights the growing need for businesses to be agile for whatever comes next.
Working with a global finance operation has made me see more clearly how inflation, currency movements, trade, and political changes can quickly create new challenges for finance teams. My biggest takeaway is that we need to be more adaptable and prepared than we were in the past.
Sabrina Carrión, Global Accounts Payable Manager, Atlas HXM
Finance Leader Predictions for 2027
Scalable Processes Will Take Priority
Sabrina Carrión expects 2027 to put a sharper focus on the scalability of financial processes for growing and global companies, given their complex regulatory environments and use of multiple currencies.
We will see more finance leaders questioning processes that have survived simply because this is the way they have always been done. There will be more focus on standardization, data quality, and removing unnecessary complexity before adding another layer of technology.
Sabrina Carrión, Global Accounts Payable Manager, Atlas HXM
Finance Will Move Closer to Decision-Making
Sophie Conaghan believes automation will shift the finance function toward a more strategic role, freeing up employees to contribute more to company decision-making.
Historical reporting is increasingly automated, so the job left for finance people is genuinely the most interesting part: being an integral part of the decision-making. I think 2027 is the year that starts to show up properly in how the role is structured day to day, and training bodies are going to need to catch up with what the job has already become.
Sophie Conaghan, Fractional Finance Director and Founder, Finance For Founders
Technology Will Reshape the Accounting Market
Tas Mustafa expects public practice M&A activity to continue, while technology helps smaller firms scale more quickly.
We’ll continue to see more M&A activity in the sector, with smaller firms being scooped up by bigger players looking to optimize processes and profits by using technology. However, that same technology will allow many smaller firms, like us, to expand faster than before, enabling them to do more with fewer resources.
Tas Mustafa, Director and Owner, Barnes & Scott
AI-Native Finance Departments Will Rise
Christian Sanford is predicting the rise of AI-native departments, which will result in much greater levels of automation.
Investment will move from user-level model usage into full AI-native finance departments that run as one operating system across the business, from a close that reproduces an audited month line for line, to driver-based models by segment that re-run when an assumption changes.
Christian Sanford, Managing Partner, QuantFi
Global Companies Will Optimize Operations
Joseph Falcao thinks that global companies will respond to the uncertain geopolitical outlook, the threat of trade tariffs, and changing regulations by restructuring around regional trade blocs.
Global companies will keep restructuring around trade blocs, with carve-outs, regional consolidations, and supply-chain relocations driving deal flows as private equity firms clear the exit backlog.
Joseph Falcao, Founder, Falcon Pax
Finance Teams Will Rationalize Their Tech Stacks
Howard Thompson expects finance teams to rationalize their tech stacks, preferring unified solutions with greater connectivity.
We are going to see finance teams looking to rationalize their tech stacks. They will increasingly look for high-quality unified solutions rather than a jumble of single-point solutions.
Howard Thompson, CEO and Founder, GATHER.nexus
Strong Foundations for What Comes Next
Across these insights, one thread stands out. AI is changing what finance teams can do, but it hasn’t replaced the fundamentals. Looking ahead, our Next Gen Finance Leaders expect the strongest teams to challenge outdated processes, rely on human judgment, and stay agile as geopolitics, trade, and regulation continue to shift.
It’s been a year of big lessons for finance leaders. I can’t wait to see what 2027 brings and where the industry heads next.
