The rise of AI assistants in HR and finance teams

August 19, 2026

Sara Maginn Pacella

The future of AI in the workplace has arrived, whether people like it or not. A recent KPMG survey of 306 executives revealed, “Seventy-seven per cent are already using agents to assist with tasks such as knowledge sharing between departments, and 66 per cent are moving toward a fully integrated AI–human workforce where humans work alongside agents.” AI workplace tools are being integrated across all departments, including human resources and finance. Here’s what you need to know.

HCM Podcast

Produced with Google Notebook LM Using AI Narration

How AI assistants improve HR productivity

AI assistants are poised to enhance overall productivity in human resources, freeing up time for employees to focus on strategic and human aspects of the business. AI assistants can be used to a number of things.

- Generate high-quality documents, automating correspondence and reporting
- Provide multilingual support for global teams
- Offer user-preference customization for a more personalized experience
- Analyze large data sets for informed and improved decision-making
- Speed up recruitment and screening efforts for hiring new employees

Enhance cloud-based programs for interdepartmental collaboration

Act as chatbots, providing instant answers to routine employee support and queries

How AI assistants can improve finance productivity

Manual processing in finance can be tedious and time consuming. The advent of AI allows finance teams to move from more old-fashioned, back-office techniques to high-level analysis and strategy. AI finance tools can be used to handle the following.

Invoice and expense processing
Bookkeeping data entry
Real-time insight and report generation
Financial forecasting
Risk mitigation
Emerging and existing compliance standards

” Seventy-seven per cent are already using agents to assist with tasks such as knowledge sharing between departments, and 66 per cent are moving toward a fully integrated AI–human workforce where humans work alongside agents ”

What this means for finance and HR roles

Many people fear that the evolution of AI is going to impact their job security, and they are not wrong. Last year, IBM announced that 94 per cent of standard human resources queries receive answers via AI agents and not humans, and they also eliminated many roles, moving budgets to sales and engineering. Enthusiastic adopters like Josh Bersin, founder and CEO of research and advisory company, The Josh Bersin Company, understands that such evolutions eliminate many jobs in human resources, finance and information technology. He believes that “Our real job is not to ‘do things’ but to ‘add value’ and bring complex problem-solving skills to our companies. And in this journey to ‘crawl up the value curve,’ we all have to learn to use AI, develop AI solutions, and think more systemically about how our companies go to market.” People working in industries experiencing AI-related job cuts are less enthusiastic.

The realities of AI program delivery

The gap between what AI promised to deliver and what has been achieved is still substantial, despite the potential for improving workflows with AI assistants. As the KPMG survey shows, “While 70 per cent of Canadian organizations say AI is delivering meaningful business value, only three per cent have achieved measurable returns on their AI investments. The primary obstacle respondents identified is a workforce skills gap. Globally, eight per cent of respondents have successfully realized a return on their AI investments.”

In a Fortune 500 survey, one chief technology officer accurately articulated the problem, saying, “We’ve spent $50 million on AI initiatives, have pilots running in 12 departments, and honestly… we’re not sure what we’ve actually accomplished.”

This sputtered implementation has been attributed to senior management misalignment and siloed implementation rather than a unified organizational approach. As such, many teams are taking their foot off the pedal on AI implementation. Some teams are taking a slower approach, focusing on employee AI education and organization-wide AI policies before embarking on full or pilot AI processes.

Finance teams delivering the most value with AI

Despite hurdles to returns on investment for AI, McKinsey and Company uses its own experience to report on three areas where AI is providing the most value to AI teams. These include the following.

Strategic planning and control, where decision support tools, powered by predictive analytics and generative AI, make accessing company data, generating reports and running forecasts or scenarios faster and easier.
Cash and working-capital management, where AI-powered agentic workflows enable more sophisticated automation in both payable and receivable processes, increasing efficiency in procurement and other back-office teams.
Cost optimization, where AI analyzes invoices and purchase orders to sort costs into clear, structured categories, making it easier to flag anomalies and areas of waste for human review.

So, what’s next?

As AI systems and their implementation continue to evolve, researchers from DeGroote School of Business at McMaster University are weighing in on what they see for the future of AI and its impacts on the workforce landscape. A key sentiment is that AI is useful as a tool to support human decision-making but not replace it. The human role in critical tasks surrounding ethics and worker rights remains essential. Shane Saunderson, assistant professor, information systems, reiterates, “AI should not be in charge of humans. Not yet, and maybe never.”

Conclusion

Change in the workplace is inevitable. Whether your team is just beginning to dabble in the world of AI finance tools and AI productivity tools or has a strategy well underway, education in AI use, interpretation, auditing and analysis are all skills that can enhance your role in the process.

What are your thoughts on