If you’re a new (or aspiring) CFO, you know how important it is to have spend data you can trust. This is why more CFOs are deploying agentic AI that audits 100% of spend before payment, so every early decision rests on numbers they can defend, right from the start. “AI is not replacing the CFO’s Office, it is redefining it,” said Didi Gurfinkel, CEO and Co-founder of Datarails, on the structural shifts in core finance roles.
New CFOs face pressure to deliver
FTI Consulting’s 2026 Global CFO Survey found that 52% of finance chiefs now lead or co-lead enterprise transformation and 48% oversee AI enablement. Its playbook for incoming CFOs also notes the pressure to deliver in the first 100 days. This is when CFOs earn the right to shape enterprise decisions.
The biggest early opportunity in those early months lies in improving how fast your organization turns information into action. Deploying governed, action-taking AI within the spend and audit layer is the starting point that makes everything downstream more reliable. Here are five concrete moves you can take and how our AI delivers.
1. Establish a single source of truth, starting with spend
FTI’s first step is trust in the numbers, and 47% of CFOs still say data accuracy needs work. Spend is a fast place to fix it. Our AI reviews every expense report and invoice before payment. Sample-based programs check only 10% to 20%, which leaves gaps in the record being shared with the board. If your team is reviewing every expense, it either happens after reimbursement or at the cost of scaling headcount to complete the work on time.
2. Turn information into action in real time
This is FTI’s central opportunity. Our AI surfaces out-of-policy spend and potential fraud as they happen, so you act before money leaves the company. You start making faster decisions on validated data in week one, not after the quarter closes.
3. Align the organization on standards
FTI calls for shared benchmarks and performance discipline. AppZen Expense Audit enforces policy the same way across every transaction and every employee, with a full audit trail behind each decision. Autonomous AP does the same for invoices, standardizing processes across accounts payable teams. Audit-ready compliance, a key control CFOs are measured on, is built into daily operations.
4. Challenge legacy spend and redirect it toward growth
Deciding what deserves capital is one of your first chances to shape the company, according to FTI. Certainly, you cannot redirect what you cannot see. Complete visibility into where the money goes gives you the evidence to challenge inherited spend and fund growth instead. Few early moves signal your priorities faster.
5. Automate with purpose and show ROI in weeks
FTI cautions against automation for its own sake. The point is to improve business decisions. Removing manual review with our agentic AI delivers up to 50% lower finance operating costs and automation rates above 80%, with payback measured in weeks. That is a visible, defensible win inside the first 100 days.
Central to all five steps is spend data you can trust. This is what determines the accuracy and effectiveness of the forecasting and big capital calls that will define your tenure. For a new CFO, our autonomous review and processing layers use agentic AI to support your decisions. You get spend data the whole business can trust, with audit-ready compliance that keeps operating costs down.
Get your first-100-days decisions right, and everything you build becomes more reliable. Start today by contacting us for a live demonstration of our AI Agent Studio and other products.
