With AI technology redefining the way businesses operate, the role of a Chief Financial Officer (CFO) has evolved far beyond financial management. Today, CFOs have a key strategic role in increasing a business’ Return on Investment (ROI), and AI technology is one of the most potent tools at their disposal and still very much under-utilized. So, just how can this technology be leveraged to significantly boost ROI?
Well, when I spoke to our CFO, Imran Anwar, he said he thinks about the ROI from AI in three distinct categories: efficiency, quality and competitive advantage. So, let’s take a look at those three buckets more closely.
How AI Boosts ROI Through Efficiency
Automation of Repetitive Tasks
In the finance team, tasks such as data entry, invoice processing and compliance checks can all be completed using AI-powered automation, significantly reducing the time and resources spent and freeing up the team to focus on more strategic, value-add activities.
Similarly in a marketing team for example, generative AI tools can be used to speed up content creation time, boost productivity and reduce time-to-market. While a marketer might previously have spent over half a day producing a long-form blog post, AI allows them to create the same piece of content almost instantly by using natural language prompts. This enables them to spend more time on the impact and value of their content to consumers, as opposed to just simply creating it.
Learn more about Amplience’s Generative Rich Text Editor extension powered by ChatGPT to understand how we help content producers to create faster.
Fraud Detection and Risk Mitigation
Managing financial risks is one of a CFO’s core responsibilities. AI algorithms can continuously monitor financial transactions, identifying patterns and any potential anomalies that may indicate fraud or irregularities, rather than having to outsource manual fraud reviews to a trained analyst or an expensive third party. AI can make links and connections that humans may not be able to, or certainly not as quickly. Not only does that save time and money, but it also ensures that a business is in a more stable financial position, ultimately contributing to an improved ROI.
Customer Insights and Personalization
By analyzing customer data, AI can provide valuable insights into preferences, shopping behavior and buying patterns, empowering marketing teams to create more targeted and relevant campaigns for their audience. While also saving time and resources on data analysis, creating tailored campaigns leads to increased customer engagement, loyalty and higher conversions, and consequently, higher ROI.
How AI Boosts ROI Through Quality
Data-Driven Decision Making
With the ability to analyze huge volumes of data quickly, AI can be used to make informed business decisions that increase profitability. By leveraging AI technology to assess investment opportunities, optimize pricing strategies or identify cost-saving initiatives, CFOs can gather valuable insights that human analysis and data review may miss, with AI piecing together variables that may have not otherwise be considered.
Finance teams can then identify growth opportunities and allocate resources more efficiently.
Improved Financial Forecasting
Accurate financial forecasting directly contributes to an increased ROI. Using AI algorithms to analyze historical financial data, market trends and external factors will create more precise forecasts, allowing CFOs to better predict future cash flow, revenue and expenses, helping businesses to more effectively adapt to changing marketing conditions and reduce financial risks.
How AI Boosts ROI Through Competitive Advantage
Increased Content Output
A typical marketing team might create around 100 pieces of content a month but now, by leveraging generative AI, they’re able to create 10,000 pieces a month, improving the variety and offering that’s being presented to customers — all of which can be stored, easily organized and localized in Amplience’s DAM.
In the current digital age, we’ve become accustomed to getting more choice and to seeing new, exciting content on our feeds and screens daily. AI technology provides an opportunity to increase content creation beyond the means of human capabilities alone.
Learn more about Amplience’s Automatic Shoppable Images feature, which we’ll be releasing soon to help digital teams turn vast amounts of visual content into conversion-driving shoppable images.
Personalized Experiences
Tailored product recommendations are one of the biggest opportunities to personalize the shopping experience. Through customer insights gathered by AI data analysis, business teams can better understand their audience and their preferences, and therefore create tailored experiences that boost customer satisfaction and loyalty. Leveraging AI creates an increased capability to deliver on the promise of personalization and equips businesses with a competitive edge that allows them to outperform the competition, ultimately driving higher ROI.
In Conclusion
While there’s an argument to be made that the cost of AI in the short term might not improve ROI, the reality is that if you don’t embrace it, you and your business will get left behind. AI technology is not just a trend, it’s a strategic imperative that boosts productivity and efficiency, increases output, output quality and gives you a competitive advantage that will drive higher ROI in the long term.