Briefing #30: How to Talk to Your CFO About AI
In the rush to adopt AI, it's easy to forget that "innovation" is not a line item on the balance sheet.
Note: This briefing was originally published on LinkedIn on February 27, 2026. It has been migrated to our new home on Substack to create a complete archive. Multi-format features like video and audio commentary are available for all new briefings published from April 2026 onwards.
I recently spent time with a senior tech executive at an industrial B2B company who was deeply frustrated. His team had built an impressive AI prototype that would have fundamentally changed his organization’s ability to address inbound customer inquiries. Instead of serving customers on service loops that typically require hours, it might be possible to serve customers in minutes. But his business case to take the AI prototype further was dead on arrival.
“The CFO just doesn’t get it,” he said. “He keeps asking for a hard ROI, and nothing I share seems to land well.”
Sadly, this is a story that’s more common than maybe it should be. It’s a clash of two valid, but different, views of the world. On the one side, there is the innovator who sees a strategic opportunity. On the other, there is the steward of the balance sheet who sees an unquantified risk.
The problem isn’t the obsession with ROI, or what some might conclude as the debate between the quantitative versus qualitative aspects of operating a business. The problem is in the translation of innovation to measurable outcome.
In our rush to champion the transformative potential of AI, we often forget that “transformation” is not a line item on a balance sheet. AI-native leaders who are successful at gaining the alignment they need to do “big” things are more than visionaries. They’re translators – they’ve learned how to deconstruct their ambition into a financial story that a CFO (and Board) can analyze, measure, and ultimately invest in.
Arguably, the most obvious form of ROI is what is easily measurable: cost savings. As in, “This AI will automate X dollars of hourly labor.” But ROI can take other forms – and it’s in being able to tell the ROI story from multiple angles that turns a business case for AI from a mere transaction to a strategic endeavor.
There are at least three distinct kinds of value that can form the basis of a sophisticated presentation of the financial return on an AI investment:
Cost Efficiency: This is the classic ROI of cost reduction and automation. It’s the simplest, most direct part of such a business case.
Revenue Growth: This is AI’s potential to generate net-new revenue. It’s not just about making your existing business cheaper, but about using a new AI capability to create a new product, service, or business model. This is where you might quantify the size of a new market you can now address, or the new revenues that might emerge from an entirely new revenue stream.
Enterprise Value: This is the most abstract, but also the most durable form of value. This is the proprietary data and insight an AI bespoke to your organization that leads to long-term value from competitive or market differentiation and the strategic moat that might set your organization apart from others. This is a balance sheet asset capable of generating returns for years to come.
By separating the business case into these three parts, you can have a more honest and complete conversation by showing how AI creates near-term value, and enables a path to long-term, strategic value. Instead of asking for a budget, you’re presenting an investment portfolio.