After spending a day with finance leaders at ADAPT CFO Edge 2025, one message came through clearly: Australian CFOs are no longer on the sidelines of AI. They are experimenting, piloting, and increasingly co-driving technology strategy. Yet despite this momentum, tangible value remains elusive. ADAPT reports that 77 percent of CFOs believe their organisation is ineffective at generating measurable value from AI, even as investment continues to climb.¹

This gap has created a sense of AI fatigue. Leaders are navigating a landscape full of promise, but the day-to-day results do not yet match expectations. Many described feeling caught between pressure to modernise and uncertainty about where value will genuinely emerge. Several CFOs also noted that their boards now expect progress updates on AI quarterly, adding even greater pressure to show value.

From our perspective at FUJIFILM Business Innovation Australia, this reinforces a familiar pattern. Sustainable value rarely comes from adopting new tools in isolation. It comes from building the foundations that allow automation and AI to improve accuracy, decision-making and performance. That is the real heart of Autonomous Finance: intelligent, integrated systems working behind the scenes so finance teams can focus on insight rather than administration.

AI fatigue seems to be emerging because many organisations pursued AI before fixing foundational issues. Leaders described moving ahead with proofs-of-concept while fragmented data, manual workarounds and inconsistent processes remained unresolved, limiting the impact of any AI capability. As one CFO shared, “we feel overhyped, underprepared, and underdelivering.”¹ ADAPT’s data reflects this, with most CFOs now expected to show value from major initiatives within 6-12 months – a timeframe many acknowledged is unrealistic.³

Technology fragmentation appears to continue to be a major constraint, with disconnected systems and legacy ERPs making it difficult to achieve trusted analytics. “Lack of integration” was one of the strongest themes across the event. In the event data collected by ADAPT, CFOs also ranked legacy systems and technical debt as the #3 barrier to progress, highlighting how difficult it is to apply AI on top of outdated foundations.³

CFOs also pointed to time and resourcing pressures, with competing priorities and limited execution bandwidth ranked among the top barriers, signaling that even well-structured automation programs can stall without dedicated capacity. ³

Finally, cultural and capability gaps remain significant. Many teams are still building data literacy and process awareness, and ADAPT’s findings from the event survey show “insufficient skills in the workforce” and “adverse user resistance” both ranked among the top barriers by CFOs. This reinforced the panel discussion, where leaders stressed that transformation depends as much on people as technology.²

Moving From Reactive to Predictive Finance

ADAPT CFO Edge 2025 made clear that finance leaders want to shift away from retrospective reporting. Real-time analytics, automated forecasting and predictive insights were seen as essential for 2026 planning. AI-driven scenario modelling is gaining traction, but only when underpinned by high-quality data. 90% of CFOs are already using, or actively maturing, Gen-AI for scenario modelling and decision support.³

Automation As the Enabler of Strategic Finance

There is growing momentum behind automating AP, AR, O2C, P2P, period-end close and reporting. The event data revealed that CFOs believe that removing the manual load is no longer optional. A consistent message was that process automation is becoming the foundation of finance agility. This alignment to ‘streamlining and enabling processes – ranked the #2 initiative for 2026 – shows just how central automation has become to finance strategy.³

Cost, Risk and Performance Pressures Are Accelerating the Shift

The economic outlook remains uneven. Inflation, labour shortages and ongoing compliance requirements are forcing CFOs to pursue efficiency and insight at the same time. There is renewed interest in platforms that improve auditability, increase transparency and reduce manual intervention while meeting rigorous governance requirements.¹
For FUJIFILM Business Innovation Australia, this shift aligns closely with the pathway to Autonomous Finance: lifting maturity so systems can be set up to self-learn, self-correct and move information across the enterprise through the use of AI and machine learning. Our role is to help finance and IT functions to partner more closely, with the view to achieve clean data, connected workflows, and scaled automation.

As the discussion shifted from challenges to practical pathways, this is where our process automation arm – FUJIFILM Process Automation – comes in. As the specialist automation arm of the business, FUJIFILM Process Automation works directly with finance functions across Australia, and the insights below reflect what we see on the ground as organisations advance toward autonomous finance. 

The discussions at ADAPT CFO Edge 2025 highlighted that leaders are not looking for more tools. They are looking for confidence — in their data, in their processes and in the long-term value of their investments.

Based on the conversations we had and the work we do with finance teams across Australia, the organisations moving past AI fatigue tend to focus on:

• Fixing foundational processes before embedding AI
• Integrating systems to improve data flows
• Automating the routine, so teams can focus on analysis
• Taking an iterative approach, starting with high-impact, low-risk workflows
• Building stronger alignment between finance and IT

The above are examples of the environment where Autonomous Finance becomes achievable, not theoretical.

Autonomous Finance is about creating a finance ecosystem where manual intervention is the exception, not the rule, and where intelligence is built into every step of the process.

1. Intelligent Automation for Improving Quality of Finance Data

Data capture, extraction, classification, matching and verification can be set up to be automated end-to-end. This helps reduce errors, strengthen compliance and provide a single source of information across finance functions.

2. Predictive Insights and Smart Decision Support

AI can support forecasting, cash flow modelling, resource planning and performance diagnostics. As datasets mature, these insights are likely to become more accurate and more valuable — which is why data foundations are essential.

3. Cross-Enterprise Integration

A recurring theme at ADAPT CFO Edge 2025 was the need for finance functions to operate from a single, trusted version of the truth. That requires systems across the enterprise — ERPs, CRMs, operational tools and document repositories — to talk to one another. Leaders in sectors like automotive, healthcare and services shared that meaningful progress in automation or AI depends on this connected foundation. They have added that, without integrated data flow, any attempt at predictive or autonomous finance quickly stalls, highlighting why system interoperability is moving to the top of the CFO agenda.

4. Aim for Scalability and Security  

Architecture matters. Our approach seeks to support enterprise governance, compliance and security requirements, so that CFOs and CIOs can confidently scale automation. 

The unifying message is simple: Autonomous Finance is no longer an abstract idea. We believe it offers a practical pathway for organisations looking to move beyond AI fatigue and unlock more meaningful value from their finance investments.

ADAPT CFO Edge 2025 highlighted a finance landscape that is ambitious, experimental and increasingly strategic. Leaders know the potential of AI and automation, but they are also aware of the gaps holding their organisations back. By focusing on integration, clean data, connected processes and intelligent automation, CFOs can look to unlock real value. 

At FUJIFILM Business Innovation Australia, we don’t believe in adopting AI for the sake of it — it is about creating systems that help enhance accuracy, strengthen resilience and free teams to focus on the decisions that may move the business forward.

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_{¹ ADAPT (2025) 60% of Australian CFOs now co-driving tech strategy. Available at: ADAPT - 60% of Australian CFOs now co-driving tech strategy} 

_{² ADAPT (2025). Westpac, Accenture, and the Australian Red Cross finance leaders on shaping value. Available at: ADAPT - Westpac, Accenture, and the Australian Red Cross finance leaders on shaping value} 

_{³ ADAPT (2025). CFO Edge Advantage Data Slides Sneak Peak. Available at: https://adapt.com.au/}