“Budgeting work before people”: How CFOs are modelling workforce for the AI era

As AI reshapes business models and productivity assumptions, finance leaders are moving beyond headcount forecasts to build workforce scenarios centred on outcomes, capabilities and organisational agility. 

Until recently, workforce planning was largely an exercise in forecasting growth. Finance teams estimated revenue targets, translated them into hiring plans and built budgets around salaries. If the business expected to grow, the workforce was expected to grow alongside it. 

That certainty is disappearing. 

Artificial intelligence, automation and rapidly evolving business models are forcing organisations to rethink how work gets done. 

The question is no longer simply how many people a company should hire, but whether the work itself should be done differently. As a result, CFOs are increasingly modelling multiple workforce scenarios, weighing technology investments, process redesign and hiring decisions before allocating capital. 

In conversation with People Matters, Vishnuhari Pareek, CFO at Arkam Ventures, said the traditional workforce planning model has been turned on its head. Instead of beginning with headcount, organisations should start with business outcomes. 

"You budget your work, you calculate, then you think it will be solved by technology, or you need to redesign the process, or you purely need the people." 

For Pareek, who has led finance functions at Rivigo and CarDekho before joining Arkam Ventures, this shift is not theoretical. It reflects how finance leaders are responding to an environment where technology capabilities evolve faster than annual workforce plans. 

Workforce planning is becoming scenario planning 

Finance teams have always built scenarios around revenue, costs and investment. 

Increasingly, they are doing the same for talent. 

Rather than assuming growth automatically requires larger teams, CFOs are evaluating several possible pathways to achieve the same business objective. Could AI automate repetitive tasks? Could processes be redesigned to remove inefficiencies? Or does the organisation genuinely require additional people with specialised expertise? 

This approach changes workforce planning from a budgeting exercise into a strategic decision-making process. 

For HR leaders, it also changes the conversation. Recruitment is no longer the default response to rising demand. It becomes one option within a broader set of organisational choices. 

AI has introduced a new variable, not a new strategy 

Despite the widespread discussion around AI replacing jobs, Pareek believes technology should be viewed as another productivity tool rather than a substitute for people. 

He compares today's AI wave with previous technological shifts, from spreadsheets and enterprise software to cloud-based SaaS platforms. Each innovation changed how people worked, but none removed the need for human judgement. 

"People will continue to run the business. Human beings will decide how to leverage technology and create more productivity." 

That perspective is shaping how finance leaders model future workforces. 

Instead of forecasting reductions in employee numbers, they are identifying which tasks technology can perform more efficiently while preserving human effort for work that demands commercial judgement, creativity and problem-solving. 

Planning for uncertainty 

One of the biggest challenges finance leaders face is that AI itself is evolving rapidly. 

New tools emerge every few months, capabilities improve constantly and organisations are still learning where technology delivers meaningful business value. 

That makes workforce planning inherently more dynamic. 

Pareek cautions organisations against expecting immediate productivity gains from AI investments. 

"Whenever you invest in AI for the short term, you overestimate the outcome, but people for the long term underestimate the outcome." 

Technology requires experimentation. Employees need time to adopt new ways of working, and organisations need time to redesign processes around those capabilities. 

For CFOs, modelling workforce scenarios increasingly means planning for different adoption rates rather than assuming instant transformation. 

A stronger partnership between finance and HR 

These changes are also reshaping the relationship between CFOs and CHROs.

Finance can no longer evaluate workforce decisions purely through labour costs, while HR cannot make strategic hiring decisions without understanding the commercial impact of technology and process investments. 

Both functions are now working towards the same objective: identifying the most effective mix of people, technology and organisational design to deliver business outcomes. 

Rather than asking whether there is a budget for another role, leadership teams are increasingly asking whether another role is the best investment at all. 

The workforce plan is becoming a capability plan 

The AI era is not eliminating the need for people. 

It is changing how organisations define capability. 

For finance leaders, workforce planning is evolving from forecasting headcount to modelling multiple pathways for growth. Some scenarios will require specialised talent. Others will demand investment in AI or operational redesign. Most will require a combination of all three. 

The organisations that gain a competitive advantage will not necessarily be those that hire the fastest or automate the most aggressively. They will be those that continually reassess how work should be organised as technology, customer expectations and business priorities evolve. 

For CFOs, that means the workforce plan is no longer simply a hiring plan. 

It is increasingly a blueprint for how the organisation creates value in an age where capability matters more than headcount.