UK finance chiefs embrace AI while keeping spending tight

Nearly three out of four finance chiefs at Britain’s largest corporations now say they are optimistic that artificial intelligence will improve business performance, a striking shift from a group not known for exuberance.

The latest Deloitte UK CFO Survey reports that 73% of respondents expressed that optimism, up sharply from 59% at the end of 2025 and just 39% two years prior. This climb comes as the business case for AI undergoes closer scrutiny rather than blind acceptance. McKinsey’s recent finding that the productivity payoff is real but conditional captures the mood among finance leaders, who are typically the ones asked to prove where the money went.

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

Concern about geopolitical risk fell to 68 on the survey’s 0-to-100 scale, down from 79 at the start of 2026. Worry over energy prices and supply disruption eased to 60 from 70 in the first quarter, a retreat that tracked the calming of Middle East tensions over the summer.

This shift stands out because business confidence itself had sunk to a six-year low earlier in 2026, weighed down by geopolitics and doubts about the UK’s growth prospects. Against that backdrop, the steady climb in AI sentiment is one of the few lines on the survey moving decisively upward. It has now doubled in two years while most other measures have gone sideways or fallen.

The optimism still carries caveats, and CFOs were careful to draw them. Concern about UK competitiveness and domestic productivity barely shifted, holding around 63. Research showing that the time AI frees up is often quietly wasted helps explain why belief and measurable return remain separate columns on the ledger.

Debapratim De, who became Deloitte UK’s chief economist in June, framed the numbers as continuity rather than a pivot. “CFOs continue to prioritise cost reduction and cash control in this environment,” he said, a line that has held across several quarters of the survey.

That instinct shapes how enthusiasm turns into spending, or does not. An earlier edition of the survey found 96% of CFOs expect UK companies to raise technology investment over the next five years, and 77% expect that spending to lift productivity and growth. Yet few anticipate much of a gain within the next 12 months.

Where the money does go, finance leaders have consistently favoured AI applications that cut costs and streamline operations over the customer-facing bets that dominate the marketing around the technology. The mismatch between conviction and near-term payoff is not confined to finance departments. A BCG survey this year found most chief executives think their own boards are rushing AI transformation, a sign that the gap between boardroom appetite and operational result runs the length of the C-suite.

Risk appetite, the survey’s gauge of whether now is a good time to take more onto the balance sheet, has stayed subdued and well below its longer-run average. Finance chiefs describe a defensive stance, favouring cost control and cash over expansion, even as they grow more curious about what AI might eventually deliver. Optimism, in other words, has not yet translated into a willingness to bet the balance sheet on it.

The direction, at least, matches what Britain has been trying to cultivate. The country’s AI startups are now valued at roughly $256bn, and CFOs warming to the technology gives that supply-side ambition a demand side to lean on. Deloitte fields the survey every quarter, and the next reading will show whether 73% is a ceiling or a staging post. For now, the people who sign the cheques are more willing to believe in AI than to spend as though they already do.