Report reveals 89% of executives advancing Gen AI initiatives; finance teams will play a critical role in enterprise transformation or risk falling behind

The Hackett Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: HCKT), a leading generative artificial intelligence (Gen AI) strategic consultancy and executive advisory firm, today announced findings from its 2025 Key Issues Study, revealing that 89% of executives are advancing Gen AI initiatives – up from just 16% a year ago. Gen AI has moved from exploration to acceleration, and the study finds that finance leaders will increasingly be looked upon for transformation leadership. In fact, 65% of finance executives described their organization as a “valued business partner” – a significant jump from 41% last year – signaling that the finance function is evolving into a more strategic role within the enterprise. Yet, AI adoption within the finance function is still in its early stages and expected to grow 20% this year.

“The race to integrate AI into finance is on, and those who delay will fall behind,” said Vince Griffin, principal and Finance Executive Advisory practice leader at The Hackett Group. “Our research shows that AI deployment in finance isn’t just about efficiency gains – it’s a catalyst for reimagining how the entire enterprise drives revenue and delivers value.”

AI is reshaping finance – but only for those who act

Finance functions are seeing early gains from Gen AI, with a small but promising number of companies achieving productivity improvements, cost reductions and quality enhancements exceeding 10%. Yet, adoption remains in its infancy. The 2025 CFO Agenda reveals that:

• Approximately 22% of finance organizations have yet to act on Gen AI.
• The highest areas for AI include high-volume transactional processing and highly complex areas like tax management and financial planning and analysis.
• Approximately 44% of finance teams have initiatives planned for implementing AI-powered intelligent automation such as Gen AI.
• A 5% productivity gap looms, as workloads are set to rise by 4% while budgets and head counts shrink by 1%.

Despite the urgency, confidence in AI implementation remains low, with major concerns including data quality, process complexity, change management and lack of AI talent.

A call to action for chief financial officers

To address concerns and accelerate AI’s impact, The Hackett Group recommends finance leaders:

• Develop a targeted Gen AI strategy aligned with enterprisewide AI goals.
• Prioritize AI use cases that drive tangible business value.
• Set realistic expectations for benefits and value potential.
• Build and refine a data ecosystem that enables cross-enterprise AI-driven insights.
• Simplify complex processes and eliminate manual inefficiencies.
• Invest in upskilling finance teams to ensure AI readiness.

The time to act is now

Early adopters of AI are redefining finance’s role in driving business performance. Organizations that fail to embrace AI risk falling behind their competitors in agility, efficiency and strategic impact.

Download the full 2025 CFO Agenda report here.

About The Hackett Group^®

The Hackett Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: HCKT) is an IP and platform-based, Gen AI strategic consulting and executive advisory firm that enables Digital World Class^® performance. Using AI XPLR^™ and ZBrain^™ – our ideation through implementation platforms – our experienced professionals help organizations realize the power of Gen AI and achieve quantifiable, breakthrough results, allowing us to be key architects of their Gen AI journey.

Our expertise is grounded in unparalleled best practices insights from benchmarking the world’s leading businesses – including 97% of the Dow Jones Industrials, 89% of the Fortune 100, 70% of the DAX 40 and 55% of the FTSE 100. Visit us at www.thehackettgroup.com.

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Cautionary Statement Regarding “Forward-Looking” Statements

This release contains “forward-looking” statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 as amended and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. Statements including without limitation, words such as “expects,” “anticipates,” “intends,” “plans,” “believes,” “seeks,” “estimates,” or other similar phrases or variations of such words or similar expressions indicating, present or future anticipated or expected occurrences or outcomes are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are not statements of historical fact and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the Company’s actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from the results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Factors that may impact such forward-looking statements include without limitation, the ability of The Hackett Group to effectively market its digital transformation, our ability to transition our capabilities to support generative artificial intelligence (AI)-related consulting services and solutions and other consulting services, our ability to effectively integrate acquisitions, including the LeewayHertz acquisition into our operations, our ability to manage joint ventures and successfully cooperate with our joint venture partners, competition from other consulting and technology companies that may have or develop in the future, similar offerings, the commercial viability of The Hackett Group and its services as well as other risk detailed in The Hackett Group’s reports filed with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. The Hackett Group does not undertake any duty to update this release or any forward-looking statements contained herein.

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“Our research shows that AI deployment in finance isn’t just about efficiency gains – it’s a catalyst for reimagining how the entire enterprise drives revenue and delivers value.”