Emburse Survey Finds Finance Teams Cautiously Embracing AI, Rethinking ROI
DALLAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Emburse, whose leading travel and expense solutions power forward-thinking organizations, today released a new report, 'AI-Powered Finance: New Practices, ROI and Future Outlook', examining how finance teams in the U.S. and UK are adopting artificial intelligence (AI) to improve productivity and business outcomes. Based on a survey of 1,500 finance professionals, the report reveals that while 66% of organizations have invested in AI, many are still determining how to measure its value.
As finance teams move beyond basic automation, the data suggests a growing need for solutions that connect AI to broader business strategy, using intelligence to optimize spend, reduce risk, and enable faster decision-making.
'Expense Intelligence is about moving from reactive expense tracking to real-time, strategic visibility,' said Marne Martin, CEO of Emburse. 'This report confirms what we're hearing from finance leaders every day — they're ready to turn AI into business value. But it requires connecting spend data, automation, and decision-making in a unified way.'
Finance departments are adopting AI at a significant level, but gradually. On average, respondents say they use AI 3.7 times a day, and 37% of their tasks are driven by AI to some extent. Over the next five years, they expect AI to transform planning and forecasting the most (26%).
Still, there are obstacles that need to be overcome before finance can fully embrace AI automation. Finance leaders' top concerns include data security and privacy risks (24%), AI making mistakes or introducing errors (18%), the effect on the finance role (18%), and compliance and regulatory challenges (10%). Nearly a quarter (23%) of respondents say they would move jobs if their employer did not take enough precautions to manage AI risk.
Despite these reservations, most (74%) say that their company's return on investment (ROI) in AI meets or exceeds expectations. The AI-driven finance functions currently providing the highest ROI are automating accounts payable and receivable (26%), forecasting or budgeting (26%), and fraud detection (25%).
'Finance teams aren't hesitant to use AI. They're embracing it cautiously and with the same rigorous, analytical mindset they apply to every strategic initiative,' said Adriana Carpenter, Chief Financial Officer of Emburse. 'What's transformative is how this mindset is redefining the very notion of value. By focusing on the integrity of how business outcomes are achieved with AI, finance leaders are creating more resilient, data-driven workflows that elevate both business performance and team alignment.'
'For AI to deliver on its revolutionary potential, it must be designed with the specific needs of finance leaders in mind,' Carpenter added. 'That means it should be purpose-built, dependable, and able to drive measurable business impact at scale.'
How exactly to measure the ROI of AI in the finance department is an ongoing debate. Some companies use standard financial metrics, such as cost savings, fraud reduction, and revenue growth. Others focus on operational efficiency metrics such as time saved or increased automation. Still others take a more qualitative approach, measuring overall customer or employee satisfaction once AI has been successfully implemented.
A remarkable 81% of respondents say their efforts to measure ROI for AI have changed the way they evaluate business costs across the enterprise, including outlays for software, systems, and vendor partnerships. In addition to a heightened focus on traditional financial or operational efficiency metrics (53%), many are shifting toward more dynamic measurements, paying closer attention to long-term strategic impact (30%) and adopting real-time, adaptive evaluation frameworks (27%).
This shift in mindset signals a powerful evolution: organizations are moving beyond static cost analysis to embrace value as a strategic, continuously unfolding metric. As AI continues to reshape how business decisions are made, now is the time to elevate how we define and measure ROI, not just for AI, but for every investment that fuels innovation, agility, and growth.
Click here to download the full report.
Methodology
The random double-opt-in survey was conducted by Talker Research, a market research company whose team members are affiliated with the Market Research Society (MRS) and the European Society for Opinion and Marketing Research (ESOMAR). The survey of finance professionals was completed by 1,000 American respondents and 500 UK respondents. It was in the field March 24-31, 2025.
About Emburse
Transform Finance. Lead the Future.
Emburse delivers innovative end-to-end travel and expense management solutions that solve for what's next for forward-thinking organizations. Our suite of award-winning products is trusted by more than 12 million finance and travel leaders and business professionals around the world. More than 20,000 organizations in 120 countries, from Global 2000 corporations and small-medium businesses to public sector agencies and nonprofits, count on us to manage business travel and employee expenses with ease.
Our highly automated, mobile-first solutions streamline business travel planning, booking, and management, and eliminate manual, time-consuming expense submissions, approval, and reconciliation. We deliver efficiency and time savings, increase financial visibility, enhance spend control and compliance, and improve the entire business travel experience. This empowers our customers and their teams to deliver meaningful value for their organizations.
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