Only 28% of finance teams are comfortable letting AI make routine finance decisions, according to a survey by spend management platform PEX, signaling a trust gap that blocks wider automation even as two-thirds of leaders express interest in the technology.
The survey of 687 finance and operations leaders found that while 31% already use AI today, a much larger 66% are interested in doing so. The 35-percentage-point gap between interest and actual use comes down to a single issue, said PEX CEO and founder Toffer Grant: "Trust."
Finance teams want to maintain control over financial processes. Integrating automation into those workflows creates a "level of tension" that individuals need to work through, Grant said in an interview. He pointed to the fear of errors on high-stakes tasks. "I think a lot of the folks who are kind of on the early end of their adoption are not going to let a tool like PEX just pay a $15,000 invoice," he said. "You have the vendor relationship to manage. You need to know that the system isn't going to pull $150,000 instead of $15,000."
Trust in accuracy remains the top barrier
Trust in AI's output accuracy was the top barrier to implementation, cited by 36% of respondents. That wariness widens a "want-versus-have" gap across seven AI capabilities the survey tracked, including cash flow forecasting, audit documentation automation, and AI-generated financial reports.
For AI-generated financial reports, 61% of respondents expressed interest, but only 14% said they currently use the technology - a 47-percentage-point gap. The second-largest barrier was a lack of interoperability with existing systems, cited by 20% of respondents.
Grant pointed to "easy wins" that can build the foundation of trust. Using AI to wade through a 20-page credit card statement or simplify receipt adjudication frees up time and builds comfort with routine automation. Rather than an accountant chasing down an employee for a missing receipt, the tool handles it. "Now, what somebody is doing is getting very comfortable on relying on a platform to do the annoying work of being the enforcer, and also the annoying work of doing the chase down," Grant said.
Inertia and the crawl-walk-run approach
Beyond trust, simple inertia slows adoption. Many companies still rely on manual expense reporting - employees taping receipts to paper and submitting them physically. The survey recommends a "crawl, walk, run" framework to break that inertia. Companies at the earliest stage should focus on automating one low-effort capability. The report noted that 77% of "crawlers" run nothing at all, so a single first step is where progress begins.
The payoff is measurable. Of the 340 respondents piloting or using AI, 69% said they reduced time spent on manual review, and 51% reported cutting their close time. For finance leaders exploring AI for Finance, these early wins can demonstrate value without handing over final decision authority on large transactions. Those looking to build a strategic foundation can explore structured learning paths like AI for CFOs, which covers forecasting and automation strategy for finance departments.
Why this matters for finance professionals
The survey makes clear that AI adoption in finance is not blocked by a lack of tools or interest, but by a deliberate caution around accuracy and control. For finance teams, the practical path forward is not wholesale automation of decisions, but targeting repetitive, low-risk tasks - receipt tracking, statement reconciliation, policy enforcement - where errors are easily caught and trust can accumulate. The 69% of early adopters who cut manual review time show that even narrow automation delivers concrete efficiency gains without ceding control over material financial decisions.
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