The Auditor’s Heart, the Brain of AI, and Why More Finance Professionals Should Think Like Skeptics

Mattias Elfgren, CEO and accounting expert at Tiego, in a column for Ekonomisverige.

Being a finance professional has always been about understanding the bigger picture behind the numbers.

In a time when AI both challenges and strengthens our analytical ability, skepticism, curiosity and a helicopter perspective have become more important than ever. Here is what I have learned from a sharp-eyed CFO, and why experience and AI together can take the profession to the next level.

One principle I often return to in my work at Tiego is this: the value of thinking like an auditor, even if you are not one. It is about that natural skepticism towards numbers, but also about the ability to step back, see the bigger picture and ask whether the numbers truly reflect the development you would expect. For those deeply involved in the details, it is this broader perspective that holds the story together.

I sometimes joke that some finance professionals assume the numbers are correct until proven otherwise. Auditors tend to assume the opposite, that something may be off until it has been properly verified. That mindset is incredibly valuable, especially now that AI is becoming part of everyday work. It reflects a core capability behind all strong analysis: the ability to see patterns, deviations and logic in a broader context.

Autoliv and the privilege of working at the heart of growth and acquisitions

After my studies and a few years at EY, I had the opportunity to work as a group accountant at Autoliv for four years. It was a period marked by acquisitions, strong growth and a reporting environment where numbers changed quickly. For me, it became one of the most formative phases of my career.

The CFO at the time, Wilhelm Kull, was exceptional. We called him “hawk eye”.

For him, it was never about finding errors for the sake of it. It was about understanding the bigger picture and the underlying development. He could tell within seconds if something did not make sense. His first question was often: do these numbers reflect the real development, or is there something more going on?

It is difficult to explain to someone who has not worked closely with highly skilled finance professionals how inspiring that is. You learn that numbers should not only be correct, they should connect and form a coherent and credible story. And it is when that story starts to break down that deviations become interesting.

That mindset, never settling for the surface and always testing what is reasonable, has stayed with me ever since. It is also why I find the impact of AI on our profession so fascinating.

AI strengthens the skeptic’s superpower

AI does not replace our analytical ability. On the contrary, it amplifies it, but only if we use it with the same underlying skepticism and sense of the bigger picture.

AI is extremely good at drilling into details at speed, but it lacks the human instinct to sense when something does not quite add up. It does not naturally ask: is this reasonable, given the development? Is this number part of the story, or does it break the logic?

Earlier this week, I was involved in an implementation project where an account contained unusual transactions. Not incorrect, just different. In finance, “different” is often more important than “wrong”, because that is where the story risks losing coherence.

A quick drill-down showed that the transactions related to a partially owned foreign entity that should, in substance, be treated as a partnership in group reporting. Nothing dramatic, but the way it had been recorded risked creating unnecessary complexity.

What worked particularly well was that I and the client’s finance manager could explore this in real time using AI, not by accepting the first answer, but by adding more context, challenging the suggestions and asking the kinds of questions that AI does not raise on its own. These are the questions that come from experience, judgment and professional intuition.

By the end of the day, we had a memo ready to present to their accounting specialists. It would likely have taken several days without AI, but without our shared “hawk eye”, AI would not have found the right direction.

AI does not make finance professionals better, but it makes good ones even better

This is where I believe the role of the finance professional is evolving. AI does not do the job for us. It does more of what we already do, faster, more consistently and with greater capacity. The direction, however, the logic, the sense of what is reasonable and the overall narrative, must still come from us.

The finance professionals who will succeed going forward are those who think like skeptics, who are curious about why something deviates and are willing to challenge both their own conclusions and those suggested by AI, and who keep iterating until the numbers truly reflect a story that aligns with reality.

I believe this is one of the most exciting shifts currently taking place in our profession. Wilhelm Kull did not need AI. But AI needs more people who think like Wilhelm.

It is the combination of human intuition and technological speed that will define the finance function of the future. For me, this is perhaps the most stimulating aspect of all, the ability to combine experience and a broad perspective with access to expertise that previously existed mainly in textbooks or training materials.

When AI challenges me, complements me and opens up new perspectives, I reach more quickly the point where numbers, regulation and reality meet. That creates energy, not to work more, but to understand more. In a world where the right understanding underpins every good decision, it is hard to imagine a more exciting time to work in finance.

Mattias Elfgren is CEO and accounting expert at Tiego.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author.