FP&A, cash disbursements and revenue cycle emerge as the top three priorities for scaling AI, as finance looks to transform performance in 2026

MIAMI: $HCKT #accountspayable--The Hackett Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: HCKT), a leading Gen AI consultancy and enterprise digital transformation firm, today released findings from its 2026 Finance Key Issues Study, revealing that finance organizations are rapidly expanding artificial intelligence (AI) adoption across both transactional and analytical processes to close widening productivity gaps and improve business performance.

The study finds that finance workloads are projected to rise 3.2% in 2026, even as head count declines by 2.1% and budgets fall by 1.7%, creating a 5.3% productivity gap. In response, finance leaders plan to increase technology spending by 5.6%, with AI implementation now the fourth-ranked finance priority – up from 16th in 2025.

Against this backdrop, the research shows a decisive shift from AI experimentation to deployment across finance operations. High-volume, transaction-intensive processes are leading the way, delivering fast, measurable impact while laying the groundwork for broader transformation. Specifically, accounts payable is at the forefront, with 33% of organizations already scaling AI solutions, making it the most mature finance process for AI adoption today. Travel and expense management and other high-throughput activities are following closely, reflecting finance leaders’ focus on areas where automation can quickly improve productivity, accuracy, and working capital performance.

AI adoption is also gaining traction in higher-value, judgment-intensive areas of finance. The study finds that 19% of organizations are already scaling AI for planning and forecasting, while another 22% are piloting these use cases. Comparable adoption patterns in business performance reporting and analysis highlight growing trust in AI to augment decision-making in uncertain economic conditions.

“What’s striking is how quickly AI is moving into the core of finance operations,” said Sherri Liao, principal, Finance Applied Intelligence program leader at The Hackett Group®. “Finance leaders are starting where the ROI is most immediate and with what they inherit from their existing vendor investments, but they’re not stopping there. As AI capabilities mature, we’re seeing adoption expand into more complex, analytics-driven processes that directly shape enterprise performance.”

Even traditionally risk-sensitive areas such as treasury, tax and compliance are now entering the AI pipeline. While most organizations remain in the planning stages for these functions, the study points to a clear forward trajectory as agentic AI capabilities advance, and multistep processes can be executed with greater autonomy and control.

Despite this progress, the study highlights that scaling AI successfully will depend as much on people and processes as on technology. Organizational resistance to change is now the top transformation challenge cited by 72% of respondents, while lack of AI talent has emerged as the leading barrier to AI adoption identified by 77% of organizations.

“Technology alone isn’t driving finance transformation,” said Zach Sommer, principal, Finance Applied Intelligence North America at The Hackett Group®. “Organizations that succeed will be those that align AI adoption with new skills and redesigned workflows, address traditional change control/training issues, and have a clear understanding of when AI augments decisions versus when humans remain in control.”

Read the full 2026 Finance Key Issues Study.

About The Hackett Group®

The Hackett Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: HCKT) is a Gen AI strategic consulting and digital transformation firm that enables Digital World Class® performance. Using Hackett AI XPLR™, ZBrain™, XT™, AIXelerator™, AskHackett™, and Quantum Leap® platforms, the company’s experienced professionals and engineers help organizations realize the power of Gen AI from ideation through implementation to achieve quantifiable, breakthrough results with unprecedented speed, allowing it to be key architects of their Gen AI journey. The company’s expertise is grounded in unparalleled best practices insights from enterprise performance benchmarks from the world’s leading businesses – including 97% of the Dow Jones Industrials, 90% of the Fortune 100, 68% of the DAX 40 and 53% of the FTSE 100. Visit us at www.thehackettgroup.com.

Trademarks

The Hackett Group®, quadrant logo, and Digital World Class® are the registered marks of The Hackett Group®.

Cautionary Statement Regarding “Forward-Looking” Statements

This release contains “forward-looking” statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 as amended and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. Statements including without limitation, words such as “expects,” “anticipates,” “intends,” “plans,” “believes,” “seeks,” “estimates,” or other similar phrases or variations of such words or similar expressions indicating, present or future anticipated or expected occurrences or outcomes are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are not statements of historical fact and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the Company’s actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from the results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Factors that may impact such forward-looking statements include without limitation, the ability of The Hackett Group® to effectively market its digital transformation, our ability to transition our capabilities to support generative artificial intelligence (AI)-related consulting services and solutions and other consulting services, our ability to effectively integrate acquisitions into our operations, our ability to manage joint ventures and successfully cooperate with our joint venture partners, competition from other consulting and technology companies that may have or develop in the future, similar offerings, the commercial viability of The Hackett Group® and its services as well as other risk detailed in The Hackett Group’s reports filed with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. The Hackett Group® does not undertake any duty to update this release or any forward-looking statements contained herein.

Fonte: Business Wire