2026: The Six Defining Challenges for the Office of the CFO

As we approach 2026, finance leaders are navigating one of the most disruptive and opportunity-rich periods in recent memory. The accelerating pace of change — driven by digital transformation, geopolitical volatility, and AI innovation — is reshaping what it means to lead finance. Traditional models of budgeting, planning, forecasting, and reporting are under immense strain. Finance must now operate faster, smarter, and more predictively than ever before. Yet, for many organisations, legacy systems, siloed data, and spreadsheet dependence are holding progress back. The Office of the CFO has reached a critical inflection point: adapt to an AI-enabled world — or risk being left behind. Drawing on insights from leading finance practitioners within the GrowCFO community, and the experiences of organisations transforming with Acterys, we’ve identified six key challenges that will shape the Office of the CFO in 2026 — and the steps needed to address them.

1. AI: The Most Transformative Force Since the Internet

Artificial Intelligence is reshaping finance — not incrementally, but exponentially. What the Internet did for connectivity, AI is now doing for decision-making. AI’s promise is clear: automate time-consuming processes, enhance predictive accuracy, and provide insights that human analysts alone could never achieve. As Amazon’s Jeff Bezos recently stated, AI represents a “horizontal enabling layer” — a force that will permeate every business function, revolutionising how value is created. For CFOs, AI’s real opportunity lies in transforming the finance function from reactive scorekeeping to proactive strategy steering. Predictive forecasting, anomaly detection, scenario simulation, and autonomous reporting are no longer theoretical — they’re now practical realities. However, success with AI requires a readiness mindset. Finance teams must ensure their data is complete, consistent, and contextual — not fragmented across spreadsheets and disconnected systems. That’s why many forward-thinking CFOs within the GrowCFO network are turning to Acterys — a platform designed from the ground up to make AI-ready finance achievable. By unifying data from ERP, CRM, HR, and other systems into a governed performance model, Acterys enables finance leaders to leverage predictive analytics and automated insights securely and at scale. GrowCFO Insight: AI won’t replace finance leaders — but finance leaders who understand and operationalise AI will replace those who don’t.

2. Cybersecurity: The Hidden Financial Risk

In 2026, cybersecurity isn’t just an IT problem — it’s a financial imperative. As CFOs become more responsible for enterprise data governance and analytics (a trend confirmed by Gartner, with over 75% of CFOs now accountable for data strategy), the risks associated with cyber incidents are rising sharply.

Recent high-profile breaches have demonstrated the staggering impact of weak cyber resilience:

  • The Jaguar Land Rover ransomware attack is projected to cost over £1.9 billion, disrupting production and eroding investor confidence.
  • Marks & Spencer experienced a substantial cyber-related disruption, with profits before tax slumping 99% from £391.9m to £3.4m for the first half of the year, compared with the year prior. 

For the Office of the CFO, cybersecurity now intersects directly with financial continuity, investor confidence, and regulatory compliance. Finance teams must not only protect financial data but also ensure business-critical systems can recover rapidly from disruption.

Acterys takes this risk seriously. Its architecture supports SOC 2 Type II compliance, that provides enterprise-level security for customer data — enabling CFOs and CIOs to deploy AI and cloud technologies confidently, without compromising on security or governance.

In fact, Acterys was rated highest in Governance, Risk and Compliance in the latest Info-Tech Research Group EPM Data Quadrant, underlining its commitment to secure, compliant enterprise performance management.

GrowCFO Insight: As financial data becomes the backbone of business strategy, cybersecurity has become a non-negotiable pillar of financial leadership.

3. From Spreadsheets to an AI-Ready Performance Platform

Despite decades of digital progress, spreadsheets remain the default tool for many finance teams — flexible, familiar, but fundamentally fragile.

In a world where agility and accuracy matter more than ever, the limitations of spreadsheet-driven planning are clear: version control chaos, human error, data latency, and lack of governance. The result? Decisions based on outdated or incomplete information.

2026 will mark the turning point from spreadsheets to dynamic, governed, AI-ready performance platforms. Platforms that integrate, not isolate. Platforms that unify, not duplicate.

The emergence of Microsoft Fabric — a unified, end-to-end analytics platform — is a major catalyst here. Fabric brings together every data source across the organisation, creating a single, accessible foundation for analytics, AI, and planning.

When combined with Acterys’ enterprise-grade write-back and modelling capabilities, this becomes transformational. Finance teams can plan, forecast, and simulate directly in Microsoft Power BI or Excel, knowing every number is connected, current, and auditable.

GrowCFO members have reported:

  • 70% reduction in manual consolidation time.
  • 3–5x faster forecasting cycles.
  • Instant scenario modelling for board-level decision support.

GrowCFO Insight: Data is the new capital. Building an AI-ready finance architecture means governing it with the same discipline you apply to financial assets.

4. Continuous Planning in a Volatile World

Static plans are obsolete before they’re even finalised.

In an era of global volatility — from trade tensions and inflationary shocks to supply chain fragility — finance must operate in real-time. Yet, most teams still work in monthly or quarterly cycles, spending up to 80% of their time collecting and reconciling data and just 20% analysing it.

Continuous Planning reverses this equation. It’s about creating living plans that evolve automatically as business conditions change. Finance leaders can model scenarios on the fly, adjust assumptions instantly, and re-forecast in real time.

Acterys empowers this agility. With write-back to Fabric, Power BI and Excel, predictive modelling, and instant scenario simulation, finance teams can continuously align financial plans with operational realities.

As one Acterys customer from a multinational manufacturer shared:

“Before Acterys, our forecast process took six weeks and involved 20 spreadsheets. Now it takes two days, and every department contributes through a single connected platform.”

GrowCFO Insight: Volatility isn’t the enemy — rigidity is. Continuous Planning transforms uncertainty into a source of competitive advantage.

5. From Reactive Reporting to Strategic Foresight

Finance’s greatest opportunity in 2026 is to shift from describing the past to prescribing the future. Historically, finance teams have focused heavily on backward-looking metrics — profit and loss statements, balance sheets, and variance reports — all essential, but fundamentally retrospective. In a rapidly changing world, where conditions can shift overnight, this lag between reporting and action can become a serious barrier to growth and resilience.

The challenge is clear: most financial reporting still answers the question “What happened?” when organisations urgently need to know “What’s likely to happen next — and what should we do about it?”

This is where AI-driven analytics are transforming the role of the CFO. Modern finance leaders are leveraging advanced technologies to move beyond static reporting cycles, turning live data streams into predictive insights and real-time decision intelligence. Instead of waiting for month-end reports, CFOs can now receive automated alerts when anomalies occur, forecasts deviate, or emerging risks are detected — enabling faster, more informed decision-making.

With Acterys’ AI-powered analytics, CFOs gain a platform purpose-built for this evolution:

  • Automated insight generation and anomaly detection: Acterys continuously analyses live financial and operational data, surfacing trends, variances, and outliers that human teams may not spot until it’s too late. This enables finance teams to act pre-emptively rather than reactively.
  • Pattern recognition that identifies risks before they escalate: By integrating data from ERP, CRM, and other systems, Acterys’ models detect subtle shifts in customer behaviour, expense anomalies, or margin erosion — long before they appear in traditional reports.
  • Predictive forecasting that highlights emerging opportunities: With machine learning models embedded into the platform, finance can anticipate future performance, model multiple “what-if” scenarios, and present leadership with actionable paths forward, not just historical summaries.

But strategic foresight isn’t just about analytics — it’s about connection. Acterys brings together every relevant data source into a unified model that continuously updates and writes back across platforms like Fabric, Power BI and Excel. This means finance leaders aren’t working in isolation; they’re connected to real-time operational data from across the business — sales, supply chain, HR, marketing, and beyond.

The result is a complete shift in mindset. Instead of producing periodic reports, CFOs and their teams become active participants in steering strategy. Real-time dashboards provide “always-on” performance visibility, and AI-infused scenario models empower finance to challenge assumptions and advise on strategic trade-offs.

Within the GrowCFO community, we’re seeing this transformation accelerate. Leading CFOs are embedding foresight into every aspect of decision-making — from investment planning and capital allocation to workforce and supply chain strategies. Finance is no longer the last to know what’s happened; it’s the first to know what’s coming next.

GrowCFO Insight: By combining these capabilities with unified data, continuous planning, and AI-driven analytics, finance leaders can finally deliver true strategic foresight — using data not just to understand the business, but to steer it with precision and confidence.

6. The Path Forward: Building the AI-Enabled Office of Finance

2026 will reward CFOs who act decisively. Those who modernise their data foundation, adopt AI with purpose, and secure their operations will lead the next wave of financial excellence.

The GrowCFO community continues to see a growing number of finance leaders embracing platforms like Acterys to realise this transformation — bridging finance and IT, and bringing agility, intelligence, and resilience into every aspect of financial management.

By connecting data, processes, and people, Acterys empowers the Office of the CFO to:

  • Integrate all financial and operational data sources.
  • Model scenarios and forecasts in real-time.
  • Enable secure, governed collaboration across business units.
  • Move from manual reporting to AI-driven decision intelligence.

GrowCFO Insight: In an environment where agility equals advantage, this combination of Acterys’ technology and GrowCFO’s leadership insights equips finance teams to thrive amid uncertainty.

Ready to Lead the Future of Finance?

2026 isn’t about adapting to change — it’s about leading it.

The question for CFOs and finance leaders is clear: 

Are your.. 

✅systems

✅processes

✅data 

…ready for the AI era?

Explore how Acterys can help you modernize planning, forecasting, and reporting — and see why leading finance teams in the GrowCFO community trust Acterys to power their journey to AI-enabled performance.

REQUEST A DEMO

Join the next GrowCFO x Acterys executive session to see the future of intelligent finance in action.