Industry executives and experts share their predictions for 2026. Read them in this 18th annual VMblog.com series exclusive.
By Casey Antonelli, Vice President of Corporate Communications, insightsoftware
2026 is going to be a pivotal year for finance and technology leaders. The big questions on everyone’s mind are: How will AI move the needle, and will we start to see real ROI? How are core responsibilities changing to support evolving business needs? Will data management separate the leaders from the laggards? I sat down with several of my colleagues across insightsoftware to discuss these topics and hear their perspectives on what will define the year ahead. Here’s what they had to say.
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Josh Schauer, Chief Financial Officer
The CFO’s New Right Hand: AI and Agility
More CFOs are starting to see what we’ve known for a while now: AI is more than automation, it’s a tool to become a more effective strategic advisor to the business.
In 2026, I expect to see a fundamental shift in how finance leaders engage with the rest of the organization. CFOs will become more deeply involved in go-to-market strategy, connecting financial performance and ROI directly to revenue objectives. AI-powered analytics will make this possible by surfacing insights faster and with more precision than traditional methods ever could.
Our own research underscores the urgency behind this shift in thinking. Nearly 43% of finance professionals say they aren’t confident their organizations are ready to navigate tariff impacts – this is just one example of complex scenario planning that AI-powered tools can help model and stress-test in real time.
This isn’t about replacing human judgment. It’s about equipping finance teams with tools that let them move at the speed the business demands. The CFOs who embrace this shift will have a seat at the table for decisions that matter most – pricing strategy, market expansion, customer acquisition costs, and resource allocation.
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Jennifer Warawa, President
The missing piece of AI adoption: ROI
By 2026, AI will no longer be judged by its novelty but by its impact on business performance and the outcomes it can drive. Over the past several years, AI has given business leaders access to unprecedented amounts of data. In 2026, companies will face the challenge of translating that data into insights that can drive measurable ROI. The question now becomes whether or not organizations have the infrastructure and analytical capabilities to turn data access into actionable intelligence.
2026 will be the year companies finally wrap their arms around what all this data actually means. The competitive landscape is about to shift dramatically, and not in the ways most people expect. The winners won’t necessarily be the usual suspects – they’ll be the organizations that solved for two critical things: securing access to the right data and utilizing the systems required to extract real business value from it.
The new role for controllership: strategic collaborator
In 2026, controllership won’t just ensure compliance, it will drive competitive advantage. As automation takes on the manual work, the controller will evolve into a strategic partner who bridges finance and operations. Forward-thinking organizations will treat the controller as the CFO’s co-pilot in decision-making, responsible for translating financial intelligence into business strategy.
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Matt Belkin, President, Data & Analytics
The End of AI Pilots: Why 2026 Belongs to Companies That Fix Their Data
According to IDC, most AI pilots from the past year never made it into production. Here’s the real problem: companies are sitting on mountains of valuable data but have no way to make it AI-ready without creating new risks.
Eighty-eight percent of AI pilots fail due to insufficient AI-ready data, and by 2027, 40% of AI projects will be canceled due to escalating costs. The deeper issue? AI hallucinations. When AI gives you different answers each time or can’t explain where it got its information from, that’s unacceptable in production environments. Leaders can’t defend decisions they can’t trust or verify. Today, data teams spend more time cleaning and managing permissions than delivering AI applications that drive business value.
In 2026, the AI winners won’t be the companies with the biggest models. Success will be defined by who cracked the code on giving AI systems governed, contextual access to enterprise data without hallucinations. That’s how data becomes a competitive advantage instead of digital dust.
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If 2025 was the year businesses tested the limits of AI, data, and automation, 2026 will be the year they start to operationalize them. Success won’t be determined by technology alone, but by how strategically leaders deploy it and how effectively they empower their teams to do the same.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Casey Antonelli is Vice President of Corporate Communications at insightsoftware, where she leads global communications and executive visibility efforts. With more than 15 years of experience in strategic communications for high-growth technology companies, Casey has built expertise across multiple disciplines including public relations, analyst relations, employer branding, customer marketing, influencer marketing, social media, internal communications, and event strategy. She also serves as co-host of insightsoftware’s upcoming podcast, Confessions of a CFO, launching in April.
Beyond her professional work, Casey is deeply committed to the Pan-Massachusetts Challenge (PMC), where she has spent 21 years as both a rider and volunteer for the annual bike-a-thon benefiting cancer research.
