2025 is The Year of the Chief Value Officer – Thanks to Agentic AI

According to Gartner, the foremost strategic technology trend for 2025 is agentic AI, and it will completely transform business decision-making processes.

Agentic AI is the kind of artificial intelligence that can autonomously plan and execute tasks to achieve user-defined goals, effectively creating a virtual workforce that assists, offloads, and augments human work.  

By 2028, Gartner forecasts that 33% of enterprise software applications will incorporate agentic AI, a significant rise from less than 1% in 2024. Furthermore, 15% of day-to-day work decisions will be made autonomously by AI agents.  

What it means for the CFO

This forecast is important for several reasons, as it signals a transformative shift in how organizations operate, make decisions, and leverage technology.  

The exponential growth in AI integration from less than 1% to 33% of enterprise software applications demonstrates rapid adoption. Businesses are moving from pilot projects to widespread implementation and organizations are recognizing the strategic advantages of AI when it comes to streamlining operations, enhancing productivity, and achieving cost efficiencies.

The fact that 15% of day-to-day work decisions will be autonomously handled by AI indicates a fundamental change in how businesses approach problem-solving and decision-making. This shift will allow employees to focus on strategic, creative, and complex tasks while routine, data-driven decisions are handled by AI agents.  

In other words, employees will have a greater impact on the business, particularly those employees in financial roles who can influence every investment, procurement choice, and strategic decision.

From CFO to CVO

Traditionally, the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) has been responsible for ensuring financial health, driving strategic growth, and mitigating risks. However, due to evolving business dynamics, heightened stakeholder expectations, and the growing complexity of the global market, the notion of creating value is becoming increasingly important.

Under pressure to create long term value, the role of the CFO is evolving into what is called the CVO – the Chief Value Officer. It means that CFOs must find more innovative ways to create value within finance.  

Traditional accounting tasks such as reconciling differences between sales orders and purchase orders are clearly not a value adding activities. Driving operational efficiency, however, by automating routine tasks like invoicing does add value.

In the new CVO world, financial professionals can add value by ensuring that capital is allocated to the highest-value projects that align with the organization’s strategic objectives. For example, the CFO can prioritize investments in digital transformation or expansion into high-growth markets. Yet another way to add value is by leveraging predictive analytics to forecast demand and optimize supply chain decisions.  

Creating value and impact

Value and impact are intertwined, as they both measure the significance and effectiveness of actions and decisions, but from different perspectives. While value refers to the inherent worth or utility of something such as how it solves a problem, impact refers to the effects or changes caused by something.  

For example, a well-designed e-Invoicing system provides value by saving time and reducing errors, which leads to the impact of streamlined financial operations.  

So, what is the best tool for creating both value and impact? According to a study by Gartner, 60% of CFOs  see artificial intelligence as having the most significant impact on their industries in the next three years.  

The study underscores Gartner's recognition of agentic AI's transformative potential in enterprise environments, while highlighting the challenges and responsibilities that accompany its adoption.  

Key areas for the CVO

In essence, as the role transforms throughout 2025 and beyond, CVOs can create value and impact in the following ways:
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• Managing the human-machine transition to a hybrid workforce requires new management strategies to ensure collaboration and productivity. Balancing automation with human creativity and emotional intelligence will require continuous learning and adaptation.

• The integration of AI can lead to increased efficiency but also requires reskilling and upskilling employees to work alongside AI systems. Employers need to address ethical considerations, such as data privacy and the impact of AI on job security.

• Large, multinational companies facing challenges such as regulatory compliance and maintaining audit trails will benefit from AI agent-based solutions that automate intercompany reconciliation, increasing accuracy and efficiency while minimizing manual intervention.  

• Document Automation using advanced AI to streamline document processing will help CFOs reduce manual errors, increase efficiency, and achieve touchless operations.  

• The adoption of eInvoicing is becoming increasingly necessary for streamlining operations, reducing errors and ensuring compliance. Automated invoice processing enables real-time data synchronization, better financial control, and improved decision-making.

As we can see with the points above, rapid change remains the north star for CFOs as they transition to a more strategic role as the Chief Value Officer focused on people, data quality and consistency. In 2025, the integration of advanced technologies such as AI and Agentic AI will be driving the shift from CFO to CVO, and the impact on business will be huge.

Click here to learn how Hypatos.ai can help your financial team transform into an impactful, value-adding organization.

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