UK finance chiefs are warming to AI, even as they keep spending in check

Nearly three-quarters of the finance chiefs at Britain’s largest companies now say they are optimistic that artificial intelligence will improve business performance, a striking figure from a group not given to exuberance.

In Deloitte’s latest quarterly UK CFO Survey, 73% expressed that optimism, up from 59% at the end of 2025 and just 39% two years earlier.

The rise arrives as the corporate case for AI is being audited rather than assumed. McKinsey’s recent conclusion that the productivity payoff is real but conditional captures the mood among finance leaders, who tend to be the people eventually asked to show where the money went.

Deloitte polled 58 CFOs between 1 and 13 July, most of them from FTSE-listed or large private companies. Their warming view of AI sits inside a broader thaw in the anxieties that have shadowed the survey for two years, though the thaw is uneven.

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