Nine in ten finance professionals remain concerned about AI-generated insights as Middle East AI investment accelerates
New ACCA report urges finance leaders to strengthen governance and skills as organisations embed AI into decision-making
Dubai, UAE – 25 August 2026: As governments and organisations across the Middle East accelerate investment in artificial intelligence, a new report from ACCA (the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants) warns that trust, governance and workforce capability must keep pace if organisations are to realise the technology’s full potential.
Helen Brand OBE, chief executive, ACCA
The report, Enabling finance insight: Bridging skills and data gaps for AI-enabled finance, finds finance teams are increasingly using AI and real-time operational data to deliver more strategic insight. However, 93% of finance professionals surveyed remain concerned about the integrity and verifiability of AI-generated insights, underlining the importance of robust governance and workforce capability as AI adoption accelerates.
This shift from retrospective reporting towards providing current and forward-looking insights is driven by a greater breadth of data being used – from real-time operational metrics to unstructured internal text data – and increased use of AI technologies which is reshaping how data is being analysed and interpreted.
Kush Ahuja, ACCA Head of Eurasia and Middle East
The findings are particularly relevant for the Middle East, where AI has become a strategic priority across both the public and private sectors. Countries across the GCC, including the UAE and Saudi Arabia, are investing heavily in artificial intelligence to support economic diversification, strengthen productivity and build globally competitive digital economies. As organisations embed AI more deeply into financial decision-making, the role of finance professionals is expanding beyond traditional reporting towards governance, insight and strategic leadership.
The report also highlights a Middle East case study from a major Abu Dhabi-based real estate and hospitality group, where the finance team transformed budgeting and reporting by replacing complex spreadsheet-based processes with an integrated Power BI platform. Processing more than 700,000 rows of data, the project enabled real-time reporting, improved collaboration and positioned finance as a strategic analytics partner across the organisation, demonstrating how strong data foundations can accelerate responsible AI adoption.
Based on a global survey of 1,600 finance professionals, the report found that:
- more than 60% of finance teams have increased their use of real-time operational data over the past two years
- almost 60% now work collaboratively with IT or data teams
- 93% remain concerned about the integrity and verifiability of AI-generated insights
- the biggest barriers to AI adoption are data quality, skills shortages and integrating multiple data sources.
Kush Ahuja, head of Eurasia and Middle East, ACCA, said: ‘As the Middle East accelerates investment in AI as part of its wider economic diversification ambitions, finance professionals have a vital role to play in ensuring these technologies deliver trusted business outcomes. AI has the potential to transform how organisations generate insight, but its value depends on strong governance, professional judgement and people with the skills to apply it responsibly.’
Helen Brand OBE, chief executive, ACCA, said: ‘This research shows how finance teams are evolving from retrospective reporting engines into strategic enablers of enterprise-wide insight. This is a great opportunity, but upskilling is critical. CFOs and finance teams need to lead in the responsible adoption of AI across organisations, ensuring robust training and governance is in place. Critical thinking, sceptical validation and an ethical approach is vital.’
Strategic priorities (45%) and regulatory requirements (43%) are the key drivers of the increase in data analysis to produce insights. While progress is significant, the report highlights the key areas finance functions need to address to improve business insights: data quality issues (42%), lack of appropriate skills (42%), and difficulty integrating multiple sources (40%).
Realising finance’s potential as a strategic enabler of insight hinges on developing the right skills and strengthening collaboration. The research examined the talent profile of the modern finance function, uncovering that while ambition is high, execution is threatened by a misalignment between skills and capabilities in areas such as generative AI literacy, predictive analytics, collaboration over coding, storytelling and data governance/ethics.
The report aims to equip CFOs and finance leaders with actionable recommendations to help them and their teams provide trusted insight, effectively steward data, govern AI responsibly, and drive measurable value for the entire organisation.
Key messages from the report:
- Strategic Drivers are shifting how finance uses data
- Need to champion data foundations for success
- Distinguish AI for productivity and AI for value
- Steward data and AI to drive value
- Cultivate critical capabilities
- Roles are evolving as data responsibilities expand
- Support risk mitigation through upskilling and collaboration
- Informal learning is insufficient
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Editor’s Note
ACCA is launching The Tech in finance series includes (the first two are live now):
- Certificate in Data Analytics for Finance Professionals
- Certificate in Cybersecurity for Finance Professionals
- Certificate in AI for Finance Professionals
- Certificate in Organisational Transformation for Finance Professionals
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