Generative AI makes CFO’s life simple or bureaucratic? India Inc finance heads weigh in“Draft a scary electronic mail that will get XYZ shopper to pay for $109,500 of companies rendered however hasn’t responded to 5 emails. Their invoices are 5 months overdue,” the enter Greg Isenberg fed to a generative AI (synthetic intelligence) software and recovered the quantity from a dodging shopper, mentioned his Twitter submit. For CFOs, well timed identification and mitigation of compliance associated dangers; forecasting future traits by figuring out current patterns; what-if evaluation or predictive analytics and analysing historic information; aiding in decision-making; decreasing 50 per cent time in drafting, enhancing annual reviews, are some benefits that they’re experiencing whereas this know-how is at a nascent stage.India Inc is attempting, testing, self educating, and discovering the usage of generative AI to drive enterprise and finance transformation. Sandeep Modi, CFO of mining firm Hindustan Zinc, mentioned he’s planning to make use of generative AI for its payables and treasury operations. He additionally shared that this know-how can generate artificial information that can be utilized to check compliance techniques, permitting well timed identification and mitigation of compliance associated dangers.Retail chain V-Mart CFO Anand Agarwal mentioned, “We are utilizing it (generative AI) extensively in drafting our annual report which is tedious and takes two to 3 months in drafting, enhancing, redrafting, and so forth. With generative AI instruments, the timeline stays the identical, nevertheless it streamlines drafting and enhancing which saves us at the least 50 per cent in time.”On the opposite hand, healthcare firm Apollo Health and Lifestyle’s CFO Ashish Maheshwari is exploring generative AI in accounts payable, forecasting in finance, and procurement.”Generative AI has the potential to allow CFOs to shore up margins on the finance facet,” Maheshwari mentioned.This instrument can help within the growth of diversified funding portfolios tailor-made to particular threat appetites and geared toward maximizing returns, he mentioned. So, what’s Generative AI?Generative AI is a synthetic intelligence instrument that’s producing human-like content material, pictures, audio and texts. It learns patterns from current information and makes use of them to generate distinctive outputs from it that are life like and extremely advanced content material mirroring human creativity. Agarwal of V-Mart famous that it’s an “add-on instrument via which one can multiply the effectivity of their group”. While corporations haven’t even hit the tip of the iceberg on the potential of this instrument, many CFOs are working with the truth that this know-how is nascent and nonetheless present process large quantities of change as use instances are nonetheless being found.“Our finance planning and analytics operate is doing a severe case examine round do what-if evaluation or predictive analytics utilizing information in generative AI,” mentioned Agarwal.The finance chiefs in contrast this know-how to the likes of ‘Internet’ or ‘Google’ within the 90s. They really feel that at the moment generative AI could also be a novelty, within the subsequent two to 5 years folks will assume will probably be the norm, just like the ‘Internet’ or ‘Google’.The flipside: BureaucracyAccording to the finance leaders utilizing generative AI for his or her finance operate and enterprise really feel that if the automation is mismanaged, then as an alternative of simplifying the processes, it could complicate them – it could add extra layers of inexactness, and may make the outcomes bureaucratic.“We double-check, triple-check earlier than going forward,” mentioned Agarwal explaining how generative AI instruments used for drafting authorized responses had been inaccurate and deceptive. “Legal is a delicate space so we take reference from such instruments once we try to draft some replies,” he added.The different flip facet is that the vulnerability of knowledge is a grave concern for all companies attempting to leverage this know-how.Modi of Hindustan Zinc additionally highlighted that this know-how could be misused to create cyberattacks evading safety techniques or violate folks’s privateness, because it has the potential to memorise and replicate delicate data. The largest problem for utilizing generative AI is that one wants to show a whole lot of information whether or not it’s by way of numbers, or by way of mental information with AI servers or AI bots. There are a number of methods during which that safety can get compromised, Agarwal voiced his issues.“Our IT head has warned us to not expose giant quantities of knowledge via official channels onto the generative AI cloud servers. That stays a robust vulnerability. And there is no such thing as a clear-cut reply round how one goes to deal with the identical,” he mentioned.However, like another technological development, this too has to mature and evolve, and the finance chiefs optimistically really feel that it’ll change into way more correct. Solution to vulnerability? Hindustan Zinc CFO highlighted the necessity to regulate generative AI by information safety and privateness legal guidelines just like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) within the European Union and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) within the US.The information safety Bill shall be an enabler for utilizing generative AI, as a result of the vulnerabilities round information sharing is big, it’s going to solely defend and it’ll solely permit far safer use of knowledge on any platform, together with generative AI, concluded Agarwal.
Published On Aug 14, 2023 at 07:31 AM IST
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https://cfo.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/cfo-tech/generative-ai-makes-cfos-life-simple-or-bureaucratic-india-inc-finance-heads-weigh-in/102706423
