Despite a strong ROI for many corporate reporting professionals using artificial intelligence in the past year, many of those professionals say poor training, data quality, and governance could prevent their organisations from fully capitalising on AI tools.
Nearly three-fourths (74%) of global practitioners use AI in day-to-day work, but about two-thirds said their organisations lack essential elements, such as role-specific training (67%), AI governance/security policies (65%), and high-quality data (64%), to streamline AI technologies, according to a new report from Workiva.
Corporate reporting professionals who said they are confident in their organisation’s ability to use AI were roughly twice as likely to say their company had high-quality data (39% vs. 21%), AI governance and security policies (37% vs. 23%), and role-specific training (36% vs. 18%). Those challenges are affecting professionals using AI in daily workflows, the report added, with almost half concerned about the reliability of AI outputs (49%) and security or legal risks (45%) from AI use.
Those concerns do not appear to be as pressing for leaders. Practitioners were twice as likely as executives to say they are not confident in their company’s ability to use AI to drive measurable impact. “Leaders who delay establishing a trusted data foundation or access to secure, role-specific AI tools are not merely postponing technology upgrades — they are actively choosing to fall behind,” the report said.
The report surveyed 2,300 corporate reporting professionals globally in April and May.
Significant gains for sustainability teams
For companies with greater AI integration, corporate reporting teams, particularly sustainability teams, are seeing a measurable impact on business performance from those tools, the report said. In the past year, 88% of practitioners across functions reported increases in ROI from AI usage. They also registered efficiency and capital gains through time savings (96%), increased productivity (94%), and cost savings (91%).
Time saved by companies is time spent in strategy. Those companies were more likely to report they were advancing sustainability initiatives (39% vs. 28%), accelerating product or service innovation (36% vs. 27%), and improving customer experience (37% vs. 29%). Consequently, companies globally are observing a significant ROI from using AI in sustainability reporting practices, according to the report, and those practitioners are outpacing finance and accounting professionals using AI.
For finance and accounting teams, external risks are also increasing forecast reporting complexity. Financial forecasts are under pressure from multiple, unpredictable factors, the report said, including inflation (59%), taxes and tariffs (53%), and supply chain disruptions (37%).
Market volatility is a considerable pressure point in 2025, requiring businesses to adapt rapidly in the face of emerging opportunities. “The companies that win with AI will be those that invest now in the integrity, accuracy, and security of the data that power it,” the report said.
— To comment on this article or to suggest an idea for another article, contact Steph Brown at Stephanie.Brown@aicpa-cima.com.
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