It all started with a small anomaly.
An invoice didn’t match a PO. A supplier’s name was altered. A payment was approved automatically. It seemed like nothing was amiss—until it was too late. By the time someone spotted the error, the funds were gone. So was the “vendor.”
What looked like a routine invoice approval ended in a $50,000 loss.
Incidents like this are what keep CIOs up at night. They’re rarely the result of a finance team’s mistake. They’re a systems issue.
Finance teams operate in intense environments, with high regulatory pressures, smarter fraudsters, and limited resources. At AppZen, we’ve seen how adopting finance AI can mean the difference between catching that altered supplier name before sending payment and having to explain to the board how the money disappeared.
Over and over again, AI has proven its ability to act as a critical layer of protection, insight, and foresight.
AI is helping CIOs reshape finance
CFOs and controllers are constantly under pressure to achieve more with limited resources. They’re expected to ensure compliance with regulations such as SOX, GDPR, ESG, and DORA. In some cases, they must close the books in days, not weeks. They should be able to proactively prevent fraud. And their now-real-time financial reporting must always be accurate. But traditional systems aren’t built for this pace or complexity. Manual reviews, siloed tools, and reactive controls slow down workflows and welcome risk.
CIOs partnering with CFOs can help to maintain existing systems and support Finance in developing new ones that are smarter, safer, more efficient, and more adaptive.
Where AI is already delivering results
Among industry leaders, AI is already making a meaningful impact. It reviews every transaction, rather than random samples, and flags anomalies before they escalate. And it prioritizes invoices based on risk and policy, rather than value.
Although AI’s ability to perform accurate fraud checks and faster approvals is important, what really sets it apart from other solutions is its ability to see around corners.
At AppZen, we’ve seen finance teams use AI to:
- Catch duplicate or suspicious payments in real time
- Reduce the burden of manual audits
- Spot risks early and act on insights before issues arise
- Strengthen compliance with consistent, policy-based decisions
- Free AP and T&E teams to focus on high-value exceptions
With seamless integration into existing ERP, AP, and procurement platforms, these systems don’t require a complete rebuild. They speed up processes and reduce resistance to change.
From insights to autonomous action: AI Agents
In 2023 and 2024, a number of forward-looking companies publicly reported EBITDA uplifts of 10–25%, driven by AI–enabled automation and intelligence. That kind of return on capital helps explain why firms are pouring billions into new data centers and infrastructure projects in 2025.
Agentic AI is the new focus of the race to develop autonomous finance.
AI analyzes and flags data. AI Agents are autonomous digital coworkers that analyze that financial data and take action on it. They follow company standard operating procedures (SOPs) with precision, handling entire workflows from start to finish, and only escalate when human judgment is required.
For example, AI might flag a suspicious invoice. An AI Agent can pause the payment, notify the AP manager, and draft an email to the vendor, all within defined guardrails.
Where AI identifies risk, AI Agents work to resolve it.
Where automation enforces strict rules, AI Agents adapt in real-time.
AI Agent Studio and the role of the CIO in transforming finance
With the launch of AppZen’s AI Agent Studio, finance teams can create and customize these digital coworkers themselves without the need for coding. If you can explain a process to a new hire, you can build an Agent. This means policy changes that used to take months to implement can now be updated in minutes, deployed immediately, and consistently enforced across different locations.
For CIOs, this represents a significant shift. AI Agents expand the capabilities of existing AI systems into autonomous execution, providing the opportunity to reduce manual effort by up to 80%, scale operations without increasing headcount, streamline policy-change implementation from months to minutes, and ensure consistent global compliance with complete auditability.
Beyond efficiency, the goal is to transform the finance operating model itself.
How CIOs can lay the groundwork for finance AI
As rapidly as the shift appears to be occurring in the market, CIOs understand that transformation doesn’t happen overnight. So what can be done today to start teams down the road toward smarter finance operations? From our experience working with enterprises to implement AI initiatives, here are the three areas where CIO leadership matters most.
Data readiness: Finance AI can only perform as well as the data it is presented with. Make sure your systems are structured, connected, and prepared for real-time decision-making.
Security and trust: Finance AI works with sensitive data. Choose solutions that meet enterprise-grade security standards and provide clear, auditable decisions to support them.
Scalable pilots: Start small. Identify a high-risk process, like invoice processing or expense audit. Implement AI, evaluate the results, then scale its use.
CIOs have a pivotal role in making AI and AI Agents a part of how finance functions, with intention, transparency, and a long-term strategy.
The takeaway for CIOs
In the hands of the right leaders, AI serves as a powerful edge. For CIOs, it presents an opportunity to strengthen finance operations, build trust in data, scale insight, and move from risk mitigation to real-time confidence.
With AI Agents, that edge is sharper. CIOs now have the chance to equip finance with autonomous digital coworkers that can handle repetitive tasks, reduce systemic risk, and free human talent for strategic work.
The pressure is real. The technology is ready. The moment to act is now. Start building a smarter finance function today with AI and AI Agents.
Take the next step toward smarter finance operations. Explore how AppZen supports CIOs in driving secure, intelligent automation. Contact us today for a live demo to see how AppZen fits your organization.
This article was also published in CEOWorld Magazine, Oct. 3, 2025.
