FINANCE

Seven-in-10 firms already use at least one AI tool to manage cash flow, according to research from PYMNTS Intelligence, published in its Time to Cash report. Enterprise treasury teams were early adopters, and mid-market finance functions are now following suit, lured by faster deployment timelines and lower upfront costs. AI significantly changes what a financial forecast looks like. Instead of a document someone has to maintain, it becomes a live output that updates as transactions land and it can explain what changed, and why, in real time. For CFOs, that reframes cash flow analysis. It moves from a monthly reporting exercise into a daily decisionmaking tool, one that increasingly determines how confidently a business can pursue growth.

firms already use at least one AI tool to manage cash flow

Source: PYMNTS Intelligence

Why visibility without action is not enough Better data alone doesn’ t solve the problem; finance leaders still need the ability to act on what they are seeing in a forecast, connecting that insight directly to payment, hedging and investment decisions. That distinction, between visibility and actionability, is becoming the dividing line between treasury functions that lead, and those that lag. The former use live cash data to make faster calls on funding, currency exposure and working capital. The latter continue to treat forecasting as a reporting function rather than a strategic one, reviewed weekly rather than consulted daily. Global businesses face an additional layer of complexity. Managing liquidity across multiple currencies, banking relationships and legal entities multiplies the number of moving parts any forecast has to account for. Economic conditions across most major markets are likely to remain unsettled for the rest of 2026, and that gap between visibility and action will almost certainly widen. The three organisations profiled overleaf illustrate what that shift looks like when it moves beyond the pilot stage.

100 August 2026