7 AI tools finance teams actually use in 2026

There's a lot of noise around AI in finance. Vendors promise to automate your entire close. Consultants sell transformation roadmaps. LinkedIn is full of hot takes about AGI replacing accountants.

But here's what's actually happening on the ground: finance teams are experimenting carefully, starting small and figuring out what works through trial and error.

The good news? Real patterns are emerging. After surveying hundreds of CFOs and finance leaders for the Top CFO Tools Report 2025, we now have a clearer picture of which AI tools finance professionals are genuinely using – and how they're using them.

This isn't about hype. It's about what's working right now.

The reality: no killer app yet

Let's start with some honesty. Despite the breathless headlines, there isn't a single must-have AI tool that every finance team runs on.

"Honestly, there's no killer app yet," says Phil Sharp, Interim CEO & CMO at Subscript. "Most CFOs use general AI tools like ChatGPT for spreadsheet analysis or policy drafting. But finance-specific AI still isn't ready."

The data backs this up. When we asked finance leaders which AI tools they use most in their work, the responses were remarkably fragmented:

ChatGPT leads by a significant margin, but it's still only used by about a third of respondents. More tellingly, purpose-built finance AI tools barely register. This tells us that finance leaders are testing practical, low-risk use cases with general-purpose tools before committing to specialised platforms.

And that makes sense. These are early days. Finance teams are embedding AI gradually, learning what delivers value and what's just clever demos.

How finance teams are using AI today

Before diving into specific tools, it's worth understanding the use cases that are actually gaining traction.

According to the Top CFO Tools Report, finance leaders are using AI for:

• Preparing financial presentations

• Meeting notes and workshop preparation

• Reporting assistance and data analysis

• Industry research

• Data sourcing and document retrieval

• Consistency checks for legal documents

• Writing and verifying contracts

• Assistance in negotiations

• Improving internal financial communication

Notice what's missing? Revolutionary process overhauls. Autonomous accounting departments. AI-powered strategy that writes itself.

Instead, we're seeing AI applied to specific, well-defined tasks that save time and reduce manual work. The approach is pragmatic, not visionary – and that's exactly right for this stage of the technology.

"AI shines in policy analysis, contract review, and month-end close for simpler orgs," says Olivia Man, CFO at Promise. "But we're still early. Stay curious and keep experimenting. Be sceptical of AI hype, but stay informed. The payoff will come for those who keep learning."

The tools finance teams are actually using

Based on our research and conversations with dozens of finance leaders, here are the AI tools showing up repeatedly in finance workflows.

1. ChatGPT Enterprise

ChatGPT Enterprise has emerged as the default AI assistant for many finance teams. It's used for research, analysis, reporting, onboarding, policy drafting, memo writing, and increasingly, for building custom agents.

What makes it valuable isn't magic – it's the ability to communicate with data in natural language and integrate company-specific information into outputs.

Here's a compelling example from Yubo She, OpenAI's Head of Technical Accounting:

"We amalgamated all of our contracts into one source of truth and connected it to our own enterprise version of ChatGPT. As we sign a revenue or vendor contract, these contracts flow through our model. ChatGPT knows that these are the types of products and dollar amounts."

This bot can extract contract terms, draft ASC 606/IFRS 15 memos, and generate journal entries directly in the ERP.

"It's a fraction of the work of hiring and spinning up an entire team to do the process themselves," She adds.

Finance teams are using ChatGPT Enterprise for deep research, slide creation, KPI dashboards, technical analysis, and spreadsheet modelling. The agent functionality – where you can build specialised bots that reason through problems and access company data – is where the real leverage appears.

2. Dust

Dust is gaining serious traction as a collaborative, no-code platform for building AI agents. Unlike ChatGPT, which started as a general assistant, Dust was designed specifically for teams to create custom agents for reporting, knowledge retrieval, data analysis, and cross-functional workflows.

Finance teams are using Dust to:

• Auto-generate visual dashboards

• Retrieve answers from financial models, policies, and contracts

• Automate reporting cycles

• Trigger recurring workflows through integrations with Zapier, Salesforce, Notion, and Google Sheets

It's particularly popular amongst teams that need secure, internal-only AI agents and want to make financial knowledge more accessible across the organisation.

"I've created a Financial Analyst agent whose objective is to create interactive visualisations from financial spreadsheets to help users understand trends," says Alban Dumouilla, Head of Customer Success at Dust. "The agent automatically generates a summary of financial analysis, key insights, and budget breakdowns."

The appeal is clear: you don't need to be a developer to build something useful, and you maintain full control over your data.

3. Numeric

Unlike the general-purpose tools above, Numeric is built exclusively for finance teams. It's heavily adopted by accountants who want to automate monitoring, variance analysis, and reconciliations whilst staying audit-ready.

Finance teams praise Numeric for:

• Real-time general ledger monitoring

• AI-driven flux and variance analysis

• Audit-ready trails and reviewer workflows

• Automated explanations for every account change

"Numeric integrates directly with your GL," explains Nathan Tully, "syncing every 5 to 15 minutes to ensure accurate data. It automatically drafts insights for each account, giving finance teams a real-time data mirror of their ERP for analysis and close management."

This is one of the most widely adopted tools for modernising the financial close process. It's not trying to do everything – it's solving a specific, painful problem really well.

4. Drivetrain

Drivetrain is another purpose-built finance platform, this time focused on FP&A. It's an AI-native business planning platform that's become a favourite amongst teams that need speed, automation, and deep integrations.

Finance leaders appreciate its ability to:

• Run multi-entity, multi-currency consolidations

• Automate data enrichment and processing with natural language prompts

• Auto-generate dashboards and forecasts with Drive AI

• Connect to 800+ systems including ERPs, CRMs, HRIS platforms and data warehouses

It's increasingly viewed as a next-generation replacement for spreadsheet-heavy FP&A stacks.

"Drive AI can create a P&L dashboard with KPI charts, an income statement table, and bar charts for trends, automatically," says Kirk Kappelhoff, Director of Sales at Drivetrain. "You can query data conversationally in Slack: 'What happens to profit if operating expenses increase by 20%?' Drive AI calculates the scenario instantly."

5. Oracle NetSuite

NetSuite is already the most popular tool amongst CFOs, according to our research, and Oracle has been steadily adding AI capabilities that make it even more valuable.

Finance teams are using NetSuite's AI features to:

• Write narratives for reports, contracts, and descriptions

• Generate predictive analytics for forecasting

• Query data using natural language

• Connect NetSuite data to external AI tools like ChatGPT or Claude

This is a smart approach: embedding AI capabilities into the systems finance teams already use daily, rather than asking them to adopt entirely new platforms.

"NetSuite provides this foundation: unified data architecture, embedded AI capabilities, automated workflows and predictive insights," says Rebeca Bichachi, CPA and Product Marketing Director at NetSuite.

6. Microsoft Copilot

Microsoft Copilot isn't a standalone finance tool, but it shows up constantly in conversations with finance leaders because it's integrated directly into Outlook, Excel, PowerPoint, Teams, and SharePoint.

Common use cases include:

• Summarising long email threads

• Drafting reports, meeting notes, and follow-ups

• Analysing spreadsheets and building formulas

• Preparing board materials

• Reviewing contracts and extracting terms

CFO David Fortin even uses it for executive planning: "The Researcher Agent scans your calendar, emails, and files, then delivers a prioritised action list and visual schedule."

For finance teams already using the Microsoft suite, Copilot provides immediate AI capabilities without purchasing additional tools.

"Copilot writes formulas, inserts columns, and even explains the logic line by line," says Fortin. "Copilot generated a complete three-statement financial model, with linked formulas, in 96 seconds."

7. Workflow automation platforms

Whilst not AI tools themselves, platforms like Zapier, Make, and n8n are essential infrastructure for making AI accessible to non-technical users. These tools repeatedly come up as critical for connecting different systems and enabling lightweight automation.

Finance teams use them to:

• Route approvals

• Classify documents

• Sync data between tools

• Trigger AI agents based on specific events

"We rely heavily on Zapier ourselves, connecting internal and AI tools for end-to-end automation," says Ryan Roccon, CFO at Zapier. "For example, automating virtual mailbox workflows using Zapier AI to classify, summarise, and share tax notices via Slack, saving hours weekly."

What this means for your finance team

The picture that emerges from this research is clear: AI in finance is real, but it's incremental, not revolutionary – at least not yet.

Finance teams that are seeing value are starting with specific, well-defined problems. They're experimenting with general-purpose tools before committing to specialised platforms. They're building internal expertise gradually and staying sceptical of vendor promises.

Most importantly, they're not waiting for permission or for the perfect solution to arrive. They're learning by doing.

As Olivia Man puts it: "Stay curious and keep experimenting. Be sceptical of AI hype, but stay informed. The payoff will come for those who keep learning."

That's probably the best advice for 2026: stay informed, start small, and focus on real problems worth solving. The killer app might not be here yet, but the tools that are available today can still make your team more effective – if you're willing to put in the work to learn how to use them properly.

Learn more about AI and finance tools

Ready to see how AI-enhanced spend management works in practice? Just like the AI tools above, Spendesk uses intelligent automation to streamline approvals, categorise spending, and surface insights – all whilst connecting seamlessly to your ERP. See how Spendesk integrates with your favourite finance platforms.

If you'd like to learn more about the top tools preferred by finance professionals, including the best spend management platforms, download our free report.