As AI becomes further integrated into enterprise systems and teams, CFOs' views on the technology are quietly shifting. Tabs co-founder and CEO Ali Hussain points out that the early "trial and testing" phase is over, and now "smart and strategic CFOs" are more focused on how to leverage AI to solve key challenges.

Take Tabs, for example—a platform offering AI-driven billing, collections, and invoice-to-cash full-cycle services. Its potential customers often cite a primary need: "We are expanding, and our current systems can no longer support this scale," Hussain said in an interview with CFO Dive. When a business reaches a certain revenue threshold, existing systems often struggle to handle basic processes like order-to-cash. These CFOs are looking for where AI and other technologies can best alleviate critical pain points.

"If areas like spend management or reconciliation are running smoothly, CFOs typically don't deliberately introduce an AI strategy," Hussain said of CFOs' decision-making logic. "What they really care about is: where are the pain points concentrated?"

The role of technology steward

Today's CFOs are seeking AI-driven solutions to break through key bottlenecks in processes like order-to-cash. Hussain believes this heightened focus on AI use cases stems from multiple factors: first, CFOs are still grappling with a shortage of qualified accounting talent—and existing teams "have no interest in work like chasing payments"; second, "boards are under immense pressure to keep finance teams leaner than ever."

According to his LinkedIn profile, Hussain co-founded the New York-based platform in 2023, providing finance teams with AI-driven revenue and reporting tools. Before joining Tabs, he served as Chief Operating Officer for seven years at IT services and consulting firm DOOR (formerly Latch), and previously worked at Boston Consulting Group and Google.

Another factor influencing finance leaders' strategic application of AI is that many CFOs now "must prove they are competent stewards of new technology," Hussain said.

Therefore, introducing AI to make revenue reconciliation or accounting work easier and more efficient can be seen as a "significant win"—finance leaders are both learning how to use such tools and facing pressure from CEOs or boards to demonstrate "walking the talk" across other areas of the business, Hussain added.

In Hussain's view, another point to note: many current applications of agentic AI depend more on user comfort than on technical capability itself. For example, Tabs itself has observed that AI agent applications around billing or collections "are more feasible for customers and more trustworthy for end-to-end use," compared to starting with more sensitive, high-risk areas like audit, compliance, or revenue reconciliation.

Turning point

Hussain believes 2026 will be a pivotal year for AI in finance. For companies like Tabs, last year was a "massive capitalization moment," allowing firms to raise substantial "war chests" for building. In September 2025, Tabs completed a $55 million Series B funding round led by Lightspeed,aimed at building AI agents for billing and collections, according to a blog post at the time.

"So, I think what's truly exciting this year is that we'll reach a turning point in the technology and the infrastructure we're building," he said.

This inflection point does not mean the end of finance teams or specific finance roles, Hussain said, but it does change the way CFOs "think about how to allocate their time and what talent they need to attract at the functional level."

"I do think there are open questions: when will these technologies reach a critical point where many tactical finance roles no longer require significant manpower?" Hussain said, at which point the focus will shift to empowering these roles to create "value and impact" in other areas of the team.