Extract from Michael Gennaro’s article “Data, Talent Hurdles Bog Down AI Adoption in Finance, but Slowdown May Be Temporary”
Artificial intelligence adoption across finance functions plateaued in 2025 after rapid gains in prior years, as organizations grappled with increasingly complex deployments alongside persistent data-quality problems and a scarcity of AI-savvy talent, according to a new study by the research and advisory firm Gartner.
The firm found that 59% of finance organizations are using finance-specific AI applications, just one percentage point higher than a year earlier. Gartner attributed the drop in momentum to mounting implementation challenges, including inadequate data quality, employees’ limited technical skills and their uncertainty about how to move from planning to production.
Gartner surveyed 183 finance leaders across North America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia-Pacific, including CFOs and financial planning and analysis executives.
Still, the report suggests that organizations able to push past early hurdles are seeing disproportionate returns.
