As agentic AI moves from analysing financial information to taking action on behalf of businesses, UAE companies face a new question: how much decision-making should they hand over to machines?
UAE: For years, businesses have used artificial intelligence to analyse financial information, support forecasting and automate routine administration. The next phase could be more consequential. Agentic AI can move beyond producing an output for a human to act on and instead take actions itself within defined parameters.
In finance, that could mean chasing overdue invoices, posting journal entries, reconciling accounts, processing invoices or, eventually, triggering payments with human intervention reserved primarily for exceptions.
According to Zaid Aboobaker, founder of UAE-headquartered fractional CFO firm CompassPoint Consulting, this changes the conversation around automation. The question for business leaders is no longer simply which AI tools can make finance teams faster, but which financial actions they are prepared to allow AI to take on the company’s behalf.
“Agentic AI is not simply another finance automation tool. The significant change is that the technology moves from simply advising people to acting for the business,” says Aboobaker.
If an AI agent sends a client communication, approves a process or triggers a financial action, he notes, it remains an action of the company. That means boards and senior management still need to establish who is accountable, while auditors need to be able to trace what happened and why.
“The most important work happens before you deploy the technology,” Aboobaker says. “Businesses need to urgently decide what an agent is allowed to do, where the limits sit, what requires human approval and how every action can subsequently be explained and audited.”
Where AI Could Take Over First
High-volume, rules-based finance functions are likely to be among the first areas affected. Bookkeeping, transaction posting, bank reconciliation, invoice processing and accounts payable and receivables management are all candidates for increasing levels of automation.
Cash flow forecasting, routine management reporting, procurement and approval workflows could also become increasingly agentic as the technology develops.
But technical capability does not necessarily mean that every financial responsibility should be handed to AI.
CompassPoint argues that areas including setting the rules under which AI operates, statutory filings, investor communications, audit responses, strategic forecasting, capital allocation and financial decisions involving employees should continue to involve significant human judgement.
Board reporting is another area where human oversight remains important.
“Producing numbers is one thing. Understanding which numbers matter, what needs to be challenged and when the board needs to have a difficult conversation is something very different,” says Aboobaker.
The role of the CFO, he believes, is therefore not disappearing but changing. As more transactional work becomes automated, senior finance leaders may spend more time designing frameworks, setting controls, challenging outputs and managing exceptions.
The Risk Of Trusting AI Too Much
Greater autonomy also brings new risks.
One is auditability. If multiple AI agents are operating across a finance function, businesses need to be able to reconstruct why a decision was made, which rules were applied and who authorised those rules.
Speed presents another challenge. An incorrect rule or corrupted data set could potentially be applied across a large number of transactions before a human identifies the problem.
There are also cybersecurity concerns when AI agents are given access to payment systems or commercially sensitive financial information.
Perhaps less obvious is what Aboobaker describes as “human atrophy”: the possibility that employees become so accustomed to reliable automated outputs that they gradually lose the habit, or ability, to challenge them.
“The risk is not necessarily a spectacular AI failure,” he says. “A much more realistic risk is an AI system that works well enough for people to stop questioning it, and then gets something important wrong without anyone noticing.”
A Timely Question For UAE Businesses
The issue is particularly relevant as UAE businesses continue to navigate an increasingly technology-driven financial and regulatory environment, including corporate tax, VAT compliance and the move towards e-invoicing.
These areas could benefit from AI’s ability to apply established rules consistently across large volumes of transactions. But automation does not eliminate the need for expert interpretation.
“Once the rule is correctly understood and the logic is properly established, AI can apply that logic extremely efficiently,” says Aboobaker. “The danger comes at the interpretation stage. If the underlying rule has been misunderstood, the AI can execute the wrong logic at scale, consistently and confidently.”
For SMEs and growth-stage businesses, that could make experienced financial leadership more important, not less. As AI takes on more execution, senior finance professionals may increasingly be responsible for determining the rules, permissions, controls and escalation points governing automated systems.
For companies that do not yet require a full-time CFO, fractional financial leadership could provide that oversight while allowing businesses to take advantage of AI-driven efficiencies.
Ultimately, the question surrounding agentic AI is not simply how much work a machine can do. It is how much authority a business is willing to give it, who remains accountable for its decisions and whether the right controls are in place when something goes wrong.
