EuroFinance

Artificial Intelligence is being hailed as both a saviour and a saboteur of modern business. To some, it threatens employment and agency; to others, it is the most efficient colleague never hired. In the corporate treasury, the mood is more measured.

Here, AI is not replacing humans; it is replacing tedium.

Global companies—particularly those with currency exposure, operational complexity and thinly spread treasury teams—are embracing AI as an accelerant, not an overlord. The goal is not to automate judgment, but to automate the work that precedes it: the simulations, reconciliations, and forecasts that demand speed and accuracy but offer little strategic reward.

As Garima Thakur, Global treasurer at Creative Artists Agency, put it succinctly: “AI is not replacing what we do. But it is definitely speeding up the parts that used to take days, even weeks.”

Despite all the sophistication, Thakur insists that treasury—not AI—should remain in control.

“AI can surface patterns we’d miss, but it doesn’t understand the why behind our decisions. That’s the treasurer’s job,” she said. “I don’t think that changes—no matter how good the AI technology gets.”

“AI is not replacing us”: why treasurers are embracing AI on their own terms

Between risk and reason

AI has become particularly useful in modelling multiple exposure scenarios and helping forecast outcomes based on shifting currency, interest rate and commodity environments. But its calculations are only as good as the data that informs them—and only as wise as the humans who frame the problem.

At the Treasury & Cash Management Summit West Coast, Nita Baindur, Assistant treasurer at Agilent Technologies, a spin-off from Hewlett-Packard in 1999, which provides instruments, software, services, and consumables for laboratories shared how her team approaches FX risk. Automation, she said, plays a growing role in helping the team simulate risk. But it does not eliminate the need for informed oversight. “It’s the judgment on top that counts,” she noted.

This tension—between automation and authority—is shaping how treasury functions approach everything from hedging to liquidity optimisation. For now, most teams are not surrendering control; they are building co-pilots. Where AI meets human judgment in FX strategy

CFOs want speed with caution

While AI’s potential is widely accepted, its risks are becoming clearer. According to a PwC Pulse survey, 69% of CFOs see legal and reputational risks from AI as a moderate to serious concern. Over half cite talent shortages in AI and data science as a top-three barrier to executing their finance strategy.

Stanford HAI’s AI Index Report 2025 tracks global trends in AI investment, research, and deployment. The areas where most frequently reported their use of AI has resulted in cost savings were service operations (49%), supply chain and inventory management (43%), and software engineering (41%).

ICONIQ’s 2025 State of AI report outlines how firms are treating AI like a core infrastructure investment—allocating up to 20 of R&D budgets to its advancement. “Most organizations expect 20-30% of their engineering team to be focused on AI, with high-growth companies projecting up to 37%,” the same rep

According to poll data from the2025 EuroFinance Summit in Miami, AI is now the most explored new technology in the treasury. This suggests a growing recognition that AI could transform forecasting, automation, and decision-making—though many are still in early investigation stages.

Where AI meets human judgment in FX strategy

The human element is not going anywhere

Despite its speed and scale, AI still lacks context. It cannot read a room, detect a shift in stakeholder mood, or anticipate political consequences.

Thakur highlights the risks of overconfidence in the tech. “AI’s only as good as the tagging behind it. If someone mislabels an M&A outflow as payroll, the system will assume you have a huge payroll every May. You’ll end up with projections that are way off, as a general example.”

That’s why many teams, including hers, still keep Excel models running in parallel-for validation and peace of mind. “We’re not ready to fully hand forecasting over to AI. It’s a useful second opinion, not a final answer and not a replacement for human judgement which is critical in cash forecasting.”

In treasury, as in other disciplines, the competitive edge lies not in replacing humans, but in amplifying them. AI will do the grunt work—faster, more precisely, and with fewer coffee breaks. But treasury teams will still ask the questions that matter.

At the upcoming 34th EuroFinance International Treasury Management in Budapest, AI has taken prominent place on the agenda. Sessions such as “AI innovation: new treasury tools to take away” and “Treasury process automation: the evolution of RPAs with AI” will explore how treasury is integrating AI to enhance forecasting, streamline workflows, and move beyond basic automation.

As treasury teams face rising complexity in global operations, the discussions will focus on how AI is evolving from a supporting tool to a critical enabler—while raising important questions around oversight, accountability, and the role of human judgment.