Report: AI overspending ignored by C-Suite while political uncertainty threatens Q3 forecasts

New findings from Pigment’s Q3 CFO Index reveal a widening disconnect between business performance and confidence as political uncertainty rises and AI introduces new, unpredictable costs. Among 2,000 CFOs and finance executives surveyed across the US, UK, France, and Germany, just 4% report falling revenue, yet confidence in their organization’s direction declined for the third consecutive quarter as uncertainty increased.

Elections are becoming a business planning problem

Political uncertainty is increasingly making its way into corporate forecasts. 48% of U.S. respondents say the upcoming midterm elections are fueling uncertainty in their planning to a great or very great extent. The impact also extends beyond the U.S., with 41% in Germany, 34% in the UK and 24% in France saying the same.

Following a year already marked by shifts in trade policy and tariffs, elections add another variable to decisions around investment, hiring, pricing and supply chains. For finance teams, that means preparing for multiple potential outcomes rather than relying on a single forecast.

In France, 40% say the 2027 presidential election is already adding significant uncertainty to their plans, rising to 54% among VP and CFO-level respondents. The UK stands out as the optimistic exception, with 70% of respondents saying Burnham increased their confidence, including 26% who say significantly.

Companies are overspending on AI and the C-Suite thinks it’s worth it

AI presents its own source of budget volatility. 83% of respondents say consumption-based AI costs have pushed spending above expectations, while just 13% have stayed within budget.

The overruns are now outpacing what companies plan to spend next. The average amount organizations are exceeding their AI budgets is greater than the average increase respondents plan to make to AI budgets next year — a sign that after a period of rapid investment, companies are at a ceiling on AI spending growth.

Among the key takeaways:

• The typical AI budget overrun is 11–25%. More than a third of respondents said they are more than 25% over and 17% said they are more than 50% over
• 40% say unpredictable usage makes AI costs difficult to forecast, the most commonly cited cost-management challenge
• Despite the overruns, confidence in AI delivering business value averages 8.2 out of 10, with half of respondents scoring it nine or 10

The tension is especially pronounced among AI-mature companies, where 35% are more than 50% over budget. Despite rising costs, leading AI firms worry about it the least, with 31% reporting no significant cost-management problems, nearly double the average.

However, there is a clear divide in how AI value is perceived internally. While 63% of VP/CFOs score their confidence in AI at 9–10, only 41% of managers say the same. Furthermore, managers are three times as likely as VP/CFOs to score AI value at 6 or below.

AI is reshaping finance teams, with enterprise taking the biggest hit

Overall, AI is changing finance jobs faster than it is eliminating them. Nearly a third (32%) of businesses say AI has increased finance headcount, compared with 20% that report a decrease. However, large enterprises are the exception, reporting the most job cuts from AI at 25%.

The most common workforce changes include:

• 36% have changed the scope of existing roles
• 33% have reduced hiring for roles AI can now cover
• 28% have created new roles
• 28% have hired AI or data specialists

The findings suggest job redesign rather than wholesale job elimination, with AI changing the work people perform, the skills companies need and where they hire.

AI hasn’t killed the reporting burden, it’s made it worse

For all the investment in AI, finance teams are still spending significant time producing information for leadership. Most spend 21–40 hours every month preparing executive dashboards, while one in five spends more than 40 hours.

The burden is even greater at large enterprises: 39% spend more than 40 hours a month on reporting and 18% spend more than 80 hours. Counterintuitively, the most AI-mature firms spend longer on reporting than their peers. As AI enables teams to generate more data and run vastly more complex scenarios, the volume of information requiring executive synthesis has actually increased, suggesting that adopting more AI has yet to translate into less time spent producing information for leadership.

Taken together, the findings suggest the next phase of AI adoption in finance will be less about adding more tools and more about putting AI to work where it can improve how teams plan, analyze and respond to change. 

As finance leaders look to make that shift while gaining greater visibility into AI costs and returns, learn more about how Pigment is applying AI to financial planning and decision-making here.

Methodology

All data was collected from 2,000 respondents between August 19 - September 21, 2026. 

About Pigment

Pigment is an AI business planning and performance management platform. Built for the complexity of modern enterprises, Pigment combines dynamic modeling with autonomous AI agents and an intuitive UX, to help teams make intelligent decisions with speed and clarity. Across finance, sales, supply chain, and other business functions, teams at companies like Unilever, Snowflake, Siemens, and Anthropic use Pigment every day to anticipate change, plan ahead, and act with confidence.