Three-quarters of enterprise finance and accounts payable decision-makers plan to increase AI investment over the next 12 to 24 months, but 68% will not commit more funds without demonstrable ROI. That tension sits at the center of a new Forrester Consulting Opportunity Snapshot commissioned by Basware, which also found that 67% of teams already use AI for targeted AP work, yet only 39% run AI centers of excellence at scale.
"Finance is a strong place to start with AI because the value can be measured," said Donna Wilczek, chief product and technology officer at Basware. "The challenge is getting from ambition to execution in a way the business can trust. Once outcomes are proven, the remit can grow."
The ROI mandate
The timeline for payback varies sharply. Only 7% of finance leaders expect AI investments in AP to return value in under six months. Another 20% anticipate a 6-to-12-month window, while 35% say it will take 13 to 24 months. That slower return profile explains why 68% now require hard proof of ROI before releasing more budget. For many CFOs, AI Learning Path for CFOs provides a framework to evaluate these investments against concrete business metrics.
Governance gaps
Stability and compliance outweigh raw innovation for 64% of respondents when selecting AI tools. Yet fewer than half (46%) believe they have struck an effective balance between governance and innovation. The numbers suggest a growing disconnect: as more teams adopt AI for specific AP use cases, the organizational controls needed to scale those experiments remain patchy. Without governed autonomy, finance leaders risk building AI capabilities that cannot pass audit or regulatory scrutiny.
Regulatory pressures
Two-thirds of respondents (65%) need major or urgent improvement to meet new financial regulations, including Nacha's 2026 fraud monitoring rules now in effect in the United States. At the same time, 63% cite growing demand for data-backed decision-making. These pressures push AP from a back-office function into a testing ground for whether AI can move from simple automation to trusted, compliant execution.
Targeted AI for Finance applications in accounts payable offer measurable outcomes, but the data shows that most organizations still lack the scaled governance structures to support them. The gap between experimentation and institutional control is where the next wave of investment will be decided.
Why this matters for finance professionals
The Forrester snapshot confirms that AI budgets are growing, but the gatekeepers are now the CFOs and controllers who demand auditable returns. If you lead an AP or finance function, your ability to show clear, governed results in the next 12 to 18 months will determine whether AI funding expands or stalls. The organizations that link automation to compliance-and prove it-will shape the finance tech stack for years to come.
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