What last year’s client discovery calls are telling us about Financial Planning & Analytics in 2026 — and why the gap is about to widen

As we step into 2026, it’s clear that AI is no longer a future concept for finance teams. It’s embedded, expected and increasingly unavoidable. 

What stood out most wasn’t anything announced on a stage or published in a roadmap. The clearest signals about where FP&A is heading came from real conversations with finance teams navigating the work day to day. 

Across 50+ conversations with finance teams in 2025, a consistent picture emerged — not just about where FP&A was, but about where it’s now heading. Those patterns give us a strong read on what will separate high-performing finance teams from the rest in 2026. 

At Pivot2, these conversations shape how we think about planning, analytics and AI in practice. What follows is a forward-looking view of what those calls revealed — and what they mean for the year ahead. 

The FP&A challenges that didn’t disappear — they compounded 

If there’s one thing 2025 confirmed, it’s that unresolved FP&A issues don’t stay static. They compound. 

The themes we heard repeatedly last year haven’t gone away — but in 2026, they carry more consequence. 

Spreadsheets are still central — and more exposed than ever 

Most organisations are still heavily reliant on spreadsheets and a handful of “Excel heroes”. In 2025, this was already fragile. In 2026, it’s risky. 

Why? Because AI tools are now sitting on top of these same processes. When planning logic, assumptions and reconciliation live in personal files, AI doesn’t remove the risk — it accelerates it. 

The teams that didn’t address spreadsheet dependency last year are now feeling: 

• increased key-person risk 

• reduced trust in outputs 

• difficulty scaling planning cycles 

Planning cadence is becoming a competitive advantage 

Last year, many organisations still treated planning as: 

• an annual budget 

• a reforecast if needed 

• reactive updates in between 

In 2026, that approach is starting to show real cracks. Volatility hasn’t reduced — and leaders expect faster, more frequent insight. 

Teams without a clear planning rhythm are now: 

• constantly behind decision-makers 

• struggling to explain variance in real time 

• burning out high-performing analysts 

Planning cadence is no longer a “nice to have”. It’s becoming a baseline expectation. 

Reporting effort is blocking insight — at scale 

In 2025, finance teams told us they spent more time building reports than analysing them. In 2026, that problem is magnified. 

As stakeholder demand for insight increases, teams stuck in manual reporting are: 

• producing more packs with less confidence 

• reconciling across systems under time pressure 

• spending days validating numbers no one has time to interpret 

The gap between input work and insight work is widening — and it shows. 

Data governance is now visible to the business 

Weak definitions and inconsistent structures used to be a “finance problem”. In 2026, they’re a business problem. 

With AI-assisted analysis becoming more common, poor governance leads to: 

• confident but incorrect insights 

• inconsistent narratives across teams 

• erosion of trust in finance outputs 

The CFO sentiment we heard last year — “I don’t trust the numbers” — is now being echoed more broadly across leadership teams. 

Cash flow and balance sheet planning are under pressure 

Despite years of focus on P&L, last year’s calls showed that: 

• cash flow planning was still largely manual 

• balance sheet logic was often basic or disconnected 

• three-way planning wasn’t embedded 

In 2026, this is becoming harder to defend. Cash visibility, funding decisions and scenario planning all depend on tighter integration — and spreadsheets are struggling to keep up. 

What last year’s calls signal for 2026 

When we look at those 2025 conversations through a 2026 lens, one message stands out clearly: 

Technology is no longer the constraint. Foundations are. 

AI, EPM platforms and analytics tools are more capable than ever. But the limiting factors we see aren’t system features — they’re: 

• unclear ownership 

• lack of planning rhythm 

• inconsistent definitions 

• disconnected processes 

• limited confidence in interpretation 

In 2026, these gaps matter more because AI is now amplifying them. 

AI in FP&A: the 2026 reality check 

Last year’s conversations also gave us a clear signal about how AI will really shape FP&A. 

AI will reward clarity — and punish ambiguity 

AI doesn’t clean data, reconcile systems or agree definitions. It simply works faster with whatever environment it’s given. 

In 2026: 

• strong structures will compound into faster, better insight 

• weak governance will compound into faster, louder confusion 

• There’s less room to hide behind “early adoption” now. Outputs are expected to be explainable. 

  Judgement, not automation, is the differentiator 

  The most valuable FP&A capability this year isn’t prompt writing or tool selection. It’s the ability to: 

  • interpret results 

  • sense-check outputs 

  • explain drivers 

  • build a clear narrative 

  Last year’s calls showed that this skill set is unevenly distributed. In 2026, that gap is becoming visible. 

  AI belongs around the process — not at the centre 

  A pattern already emerging last year was “prompt bloat”: 

  • long, fragile prompts 

  • single-person ownership 

  • inconsistent outputs from small wording changes 

  In 2026, the risk is clear. When AI replaces planning logic rather than supporting it, teams recreate the same one-person dependency they were trying to escape. 

  The most effective teams are using AI to: 

  • accelerate analysis 

  • support scenario thinking 

  • improve commentary 

  Not to calculate the official plan. 

  What finance teams getting ahead are doing differently 

  From the organisations already pulling away, a few practical foundations stand out: 

  • agreeing on a single source of definition 

  • investing in clean, sufficient historical data 

  • standardising core reporting before expanding 

  • automating incrementally, not all at once 

  • positioning AI as augmentation, not authority 

• These aren’t new ideas — but in 2026, they’re proving decisive. 

  Looking ahead 

  The signals from last year’s client calls are clear. 

  In 2026, FP&A teams aren’t competing on tools. They’re competing on clarity, cadence and confidence. 

  AI won’t replace finance. But it will continue to expose weak foundations and amplify strong ones — faster than ever before. 

  The teams that succeed this year will be the ones that did the foundational work early, and equipped their people not just to produce numbers, but to explain them. 

  That’s where the real advantage now sits.