2026 Predictions: A CFO's View on AI, the Workforce, and What Finance Teams Actually Need

I've had the benefit of time. Weathering through Y2K, the dot-com bust, the COVID remote-work explosion, followed by the SaaS growth surge, followed by whatever we're calling the current geopolitical and economic moment. "Bonkers" works.

Every generation thinks they're living in the most complicated, toughest times. And if you look back in history, there have been periods that make our current challenges look manageable by comparison. But here's what I know for certain: the finance teams that thrive will be the ones leaning in, not retreating to dark corners with their spreadsheets.

So as we head into 2026, here's what I'm watching, and what I think finance and procurement leaders need to be ready for.

1. AI Has Earned Its Seat at the Table (Finally)

It's helpful to step back and trace the lifecycle of AI in finance over the past eighteen months or so.

1. Early on, there was extreme skepticism. The large language models would hallucinate and produce crazy results. Finance teams - rightfully cautious by nature - didn't touch it.
2. Then the models got finely tuned and started producing genuinely useful output. Finance remained a laggard, maybe late majority at best, but adoption started heating up when AI proved it could do something valuable: ingest data and function as an always-on analyst.

Leveraging things like Python coding, running complete end-to-end analysis, recommending next steps. I've experienced it firsthand how it now helps. It's powerful. Much better than it was even six months ago.

The natural evolution in 2026? CFOs will continue adopting AI tools, but with a focus on those that reduce risk, shorten cycle times, and enhance accuracy.

That's because smart finance leaders will lean into the core mission of any finance team: to deliver timely, accurate, relevant, and proactively persuasive insights that grow revenue and unlock efficiency.

AI can flex on nearly all of those. Timely reconciliations, variance analysis, scanning for outliers, matching contracts to actuals. That's a clear win for the House of Finance.

2. The Best Prompts Will Disappear Into Buttons

How we interact with AI is about to change. And for some, it may have already changed. 

Currently, the best AI prompts are extremely wordy. You end up giving detailed instructions, reshaping the prompt through multiple iterations, and frankly spending more time than you'd like just getting the AI to understand what you need.

In 2026, this will be replaced with embedded, expert-shaped prompts built directly into native applications. I’ve continuously talked about AI in context - and that context is finally coming, built in.

They'll present as simple buttons or guided options that drive sophisticated analysis under the hood. At Tropic, we're already doing this with Ask Tropic, where the buttons you see are really AI prompts we've shaped with expertise, packaged so you don't have to think about prompt engineering.

I think we'll see packages of AI prompts enter the mainstream. For those who have been slower to adopt, or trust, agentic AI, this is the interim step. You’ll see a rise of subscription-based libraries of best-practice prompts. The complexity will get abstracted away, which is exactly what needs to happen for broader adoption.

3. AI Goes to Truly Proactive

The shift from reactive queries to proactive intelligence is the next frontier. 

Because AI can be always on and always listening, it can continuously detect anomalies, variances, and breaks in financial patterns. Then, instantly flag them for team review. While this is already happening across some teams, it needs to be universally adopted and is a key step in how AI will grow as an analytical partner for finance and procurement teams.

Think about what that means: instead of running reports and hoping you catch something, the system surfaces issues before they become problems. That's a transformation in how finance operates.

4. The Pendulum Will Swing Back on Workforce Cuts

We're seeing companies make big bets on AI and reduce headcount under the assumption that AI is ready to replace certain categories of knowledge work.

I think they're overreacting.

I was reading a Wall Street Journal article a month ago about the 1X Neo, a home robot that's supposed to do chores autonomously. Hello Jetsons! In reality, they have actual humans wearing VR headsets controlling the robot behind the scenes because it takes many training cycles to get even simple tasks right. The AI is impressive, but we're still early.

The same applies to knowledge work. People still buy based on human connection. They acclimate and learn better from humans who can express emotion and tell creative stories. There's something fundamentally unnatural about AI-generated text and art - the silly version being that every time I see an em-dash in a certain cadence, I know AI wrote it. And yes, I did use AI to help me write this. But, I also reviewed it, and purposely chose to leave the em-dash. 

The pendulum will swing back. When the dust settles, the knowledge workers who remain will be those who upleveled their skills and prove they can multiply their output using AI. This needs to go beyond ChatGPT searches and prompts, but true systems powered by AI, with human in the loop. 

5. Trade Skills Will Have a Renaissance

Here's something I don't hear enough people talking about.

If AI displaces certain categories of knowledge work, where do those workers go? I think we need to see a reset around encouraging people to pursue trade work. Electricians, plumbers, mechanics, etc. I have a hole in my office ceiling from a leak that needs both a plumber and a carpenter to fix. AI will never replace them.

There's been an unfortunate era where trade schools were looked down upon compared to, say, business school. I say that as someone who went to business school. But hands-on work is extremely valuable to society and deserves recognition. I believe we'll see more people pursuing these paths, which will create innovation in those fields and probably spawn entirely new categories of companies.

Economies figure it out. That's the beauty of innovation. But the shift in where high school graduates focus their energy is coming.

6. The CFO and Procurement Must Stop Operating in Silos

In 2026, there should be a real evolution in how CFOs and procurement leaders operate together.

Every company, regardless of size, is already doing procurement the moment they start buying things. They need an approach that scales. For that to happen, the silos between procurement and finance have to come down.

We're already seeing the industry move this direction with rising demand for operational, strategic-minded CFOs. A decade ago, the CFO role was mostly about reporting on the past. Rarely seen, rarely heard. Now it's hard to find a job description that doesn't call for a strategic advisor to the CEO.

Why did that happen? The permanence and pervasiveness of data. The people best equipped to guide teams in consuming massive amounts of data and making sense of it are CFOs. And procurement is a huge source of forward-looking data at the very edge of where company finances are being spent.

So in 2026, expect more demand for strategic CFOs who understand that procurement needs a seat at the table, not as a tactical function, but as a strategic partner.

7. Not All Intelligence Is Created Equal

As more finance and procurement teams experiment with AI, the competitive landscape for procurement technology will become clearer.

People will learn the hard way that you get what you pay for. "Free" alternatives won't deliver the value they promise. Not all data and intelligence are created equally, and a benchmark is not just a benchmark.

Real guidance comes from experts who have run thousands of negotiations. Not from scraping internet facts and aggregating them through AI. There's a difference between what's on a vendor's website and what actually happens when it's time to sign.

If the world would just use more of what's available from true intelligence providers, you'd have a lot more people saving time, money, reducing risk, and increasing visibility. Yes, I’m a little bias and extremely bullish on this one. But, I do believe the procurement technology that wins in 2026 will be the stuff that actually delivers, not the stuff that just looks good in a demo. You need it to do both. 

The Source of Truth in Troubled Waters

I've always said the CFO needs to be the steady hand in troubled waters.

With economic volatility, geopolitical instability, AI disruption, and shifting workforce expectations, finance leaders are tasked with creating stability amid the unknown. That's not new, it's just harder now because of the modern overload of noise.

There's a tendency during uncertain times to blame the data, blame the plan, blame the targets. "We have bad data." "The plan was wrong." "Why did we set targets we couldn't achieve?" The finance team has to hold up the mirror and remind the business: this is who we said we aspire to be. This is what we're capable of.

The teams that thrive in 2026 will be the ones leaning in. Avoiding stagnation, investing in new tools, shining a light on how to move forward. Not the ones reverting to heads-down-in-the-spreadsheet mode.

That's not going to win this battle.