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This is the first in our occasional “Use case” series about the practical ways finance departments are implementing AI.
As CFO of technology and consulting giant UST, Vijay Padmanabhan has seen the growth of generative AI firsthand. He spoke with CFO Brew about how his clients, which include Fortune 500 and Global 1000 companies, view GenAI, and how UST is implementing it internally.
GenAI is “dominating the whole conversation,” Padmanabhan said. It “definitely is changing the way we are looking at business, how our customers are looking at business.”
However, he noted, it’s still in the “early days” for the technology. Recent surveys show that some companies are still in the experimental stage when it comes to AI: Only around 20% of CFOs in a McKinsey pulse survey said their companies were using it, and of that group, about half said their GenAI projects were in the pilot phase.
Padmanabhan’s experience bears this out. Many of his clients, he said, are taking a more cautious approach to GenAI, due to concerns about its cost and accuracy. Their AI efforts are still in the proof-of-concept phase, he said.
UST is likewise taking an exploratory approach to GenAI, Padmanabhan said, with various projects in early stages.
“For us internally, in all our functions, including finance, GenAI is going to have a significant impact,” he said. For instance, the finance function at UST is using it to review contracts, generate invoices, perform expense management tasks, and to identify anomalies and detect fraud.
The company’s also using GenAI in hiring, Padmanabhan said. With AI assistance, recruiters—instead of subject matter experts—can complete up to the first two rounds or so of interviews. “Based on the skill set and the need of the position, many of the questions can be GenAI-driven questions,” he said.
On the whole, Padmanabhan sees great potential in GenAI. He predicts that it may replace some roles in the future, but that it will likely create new ones, too. “This could be a great enabler, like the computer or the internet,” he said.
And while AI “is not going to take out all the human elements” of jobs, he said, “upskilling yourself [and getting] training in GenAI and GenAI-related technologies is going to be very important for the workforce…constant learning is going to be very key.”