The CFO as AI governor-in-chief

When artificial intelligence can quietly change your costs, risks and reputation, someone must own the numbers – and the guardrails. That person is the CFO.

Article link: https://open.substack.com/pub/johanosteyn/p/the-cfo-as-ai-governor-in-chief?r=73gqa&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

Audio summary: https://youtu.be/9uc7NPVLNPc

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I write about various issues of interest to me that I want to bring to the reader’s attention. While my main work is in Artificial Intelligence and technology, I also cover areas around politics, education, and the future of our children.

In many organisations, AI is still treated as a technology adventure. The CIO signs contracts, innovation teams run pilots, vendors promise miracles, and everyone is very excited about “the art of the possible”. Meanwhile, finance teams are left trying to work out what any of this does to the balance sheet, income statement and risk profile. The reality is simple: AI is not just a technical capability; it is a financial and governance challenge. Models can move money, shift risk, expose you to regulators and damage your reputation – often in subtle ways.

That is why I argue that the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) should not only care about AI spend; they should be the de facto governor-in-chief of AI: owning value, risk and discipline across the enterprise.

CONTEXT AND BACKGROUND

For decades, technology decisions sat mostly with IT. Finance approved budgets and checked that projects stayed roughly on cost. Governance was often bolted on later: security reviews, internal audit, and compliance. AI breaks that pattern.

It does not sit neatly in a single system or department. It appears inside ERP platforms, productivity suites, CRM tools and marketing systems. It makes predictions about credit, fraud, pricing, workforce planning and investment. In other words, it entangles itself directly with financial flows and risk exposures.

At the same time, AI has become relatively cheap to start but expensive to scale.

Cloud-based models and “AI as a service” mean business units can experiment without big upfront capital. But when those experiments succeed, the ongoing costs can grow quickly: consumption fees, data pipelines, integration work, extra controls. Without strong financial and governance oversight, organisations end up with dozens of scattered AI tools, unclear benefits and silent risk. In an African context, where capital is scarce and regulatory expectations are rising, this is not sustainable.

INSIGHT AND ANALYSIS

Putting the CFO at the centre of AI governance changes the conversation. Instead of asking “What cool things can this model do?”, the questions become: Which financial levers does this affect? What risks does it introduce? How will we know if it is working? That discipline is badly needed. Surveys show that many companies have increased AI investment sharply, yet only a minority report clear, measurable returns. The gap between spend and impact is, at heart, a governance failure.

The CFO naturally sits at the intersection of value and risk. They understand capital allocation, cost of funds, return expectations and regulatory pressure. They are used to balancing opportunity with control. When they take ownership of AI governance, several principles follow. First, AI is treated as a portfolio of financial bets, not a collection of experiments. Each use case needs a business case, value hypothesis and a defined payback horizon. 

Second, AI risk is integrated into existing frameworks: model risk, operational risk, conduct risk and compliance. Third, ongoing performance is monitored: costs, benefits and unintended consequences.

This is not about turning finance into a technology police force. It is about giving AI a clear owner who can say “no” when necessary. For example, a marketing team may want to deploy a generative model to personalise campaigns. The CFO’s governance lens asks: Are we certain about data privacy? What happens if the model hallucinates inappropriate content? How will we measure incremental revenue versus the cost and risk? If those questions cannot be answered, the project should not move ahead.

IMPLICATIONS

For CEOs and boards, designating the CFO as AI governor-in-chief sends a powerful message: AI is not a toy; it is part of the core business model. It encourages a tighter partnership between finance, IT, risk and business units. Cross-functional AI committees chaired by the CFO can align priorities, approve funding, and oversee ethics, controls and reporting. It also creates a single point of accountability when regulators, auditors or shareholders ask, “Who owns this?”

For CFOs, this role expansion is demanding but strategic. It means developing enough AI literacy to interrogate models and vendors, building teams that blend finance skills with data and risk expertise, and engaging proactively with regulators and auditors. It also means being willing to stop or reshape projects that do not deliver, even when they are politically popular internally.

In South Africa and across Africa, where economic headroom is limited, this mindset is essential. We simply cannot afford AI theatre. Every rand invested in AI must work hard – improving productivity, reducing losses, enhancing resilience. A CFO-led governance model helps ensure that happens.

CLOSING TAKEAWAY

AI will not fail because the technology is weak; it will fail where governance is weak. When algorithms can influence lending decisions, claims payouts, pricing, collections and even workforce management, leaving AI ownership scattered across the organisation is irresponsible. The CFO, with a mandate over value creation and risk control, is the natural governor-in-chief for AI. That does not mean they must become data scientists. It means they must demand clarity: where AI touches the numbers, where it shifts risk, and how it will be held to account. In an era of rapid technological change and economic pressure, the organisations that thrive will be those where the CFO is not a spectator to AI – but its most demanding, disciplined and strategic owner.

Author Bio: Johan Steyn is a prominent AI thought leader, speaker, and author with a deep understanding of artificial intelligence’s impact on business and society. He is passionate about ethical AI development and its role in shaping a better future. Find out more about Johan’s work at https://www.aiforbusiness.net