AI-Ready Finance: Can You Trust the Numbers Behind the Output?

AI is promising faster analysis, richer insight and more automated reporting in the finance function. But as finance teams increasingly rely on AI-generated outputs, a more fundamental question emerges: Can you trust the numbers behind them?

For CFOs and finance leaders, confidence in the outputs depends on the quality of the underlying data, the controls governing how information is used, and the ability to explain and independently verify the answer when challenged.

Join us for this roundtable that will bring together senior finance, transformation and reporting leaders to explore what it takes to build an AI-ready finance function.

Over three courses of dinner, we will consider three core questions:

• What happens when AI tools meet the data reality of finance? Finance functions have learned to operate around fragmented systems, inconsistent definitions and manual reconciliation. AI encounters that same complexity at speed and scale. Does this make long-standing data problems more pressing, and what needs to change before finance can confidently put AI to work?

• What does it take to make an AI output defensible? A plausible output is not enough in finance. It needs to withstand scrutiny from management, auditors, regulators and other stakeholders. As AI becomes part of how information is assembled and interpreted, how do we preserve the lineage, controls and evidence needed to stand behind the outcome?

• Could AI change how finance creates trust? Much of today’s assurance is retrospective: reconcile, review, sign off, report. What if controls and verification could happen more often as data moves through the organisation? Could AI help shift finance from periodic assurance towards continuous confidence in the numbers?

As finance embraces AI, competitive advantage may not come from who adopts the technology fastest, but from who can trust it most.

About this Think Tank

Like every Banking Scene Think Tank, this evening is built around conversation rather than presentations.

Hosted under the Chatham House Rule in collaboration with our partner Workiva, this intimate, peer-led Think Tank will provide an opportunity to compare approaches with fellow finance leaders, challenge assumptions and explore what an AI-ready finance function needs to look like when speed, intelligence and automation must still withstand the scrutiny traditionally expected of the numbers themselves.

There will be:

• no presentations

• no product demonstrations

• no sales pitches

• no press

Practical Information

Date: November 12, 2026

Time: 18:30 to 22:00

Location: De Warande, Brussels

(Please note: This is an invitation-only event, and seats are reserved for Benelux-based banking executives and decision-makers responsible for finance, accounting, finance transformation, financial reporting or external sustainability / CSRD / ESG reporting. If you would like to participate or nominate a colleague to attend, please get in touch here to discuss if this is the right fit for you).