Persistent uncertainty is reshaping how businesses operate, from continuous planning to AI adoption

If there is one certainty in business today, it is that nothing feels certain. For entrepreneurs, boards, and leadership teams, this environment demands far greater agility than ever before, with finance teams playing a critical role in enabling that shift. Today, CFOs play a highly strategic role in designing and shaping how their organisations respond to an ever-changing macro environment, from capital allocation and scenario planning, to technology investment and building long-term resilience. 

Every quarter at Pigment, we survey finance teams in the UK, US, France, and Germany to take the temperature across a number of key issues and identify upcoming trends. Our most recent CFO Index demonstrated how a persistent environment of uncertainty is reshaping how businesses operate, beginning with finance functions. The latest data was collected from 2,000 CFOs and finance leaders between May 1^st and June 2^nd 2026, a few months into the Iran conflict. Unsurprisingly, the key drivers of uncertainty for UK businesses were geopolitical conflict, energy cost volatility, and macroeconomic instability. 

The fall-out from the conflict, combined with domestic economic pressures, has made the operating environment for businesses in the UK and Europe increasingly challenging. Yet, in the face of uncertainty, the majority are not panicking. Our data shows that 76% of businesses are still reporting increased revenue growth over 12 months, and that the majority (55%), view turbulence as more of an opportunity than a liability. 

Perhaps this is because uncertainty is now becoming the new business status quo, and CFOs and finance leaders are increasingly focused on proactively redesigning their operations so their organisations can respond faster, model multiple scenarios, and make decisions with greater confidence. 

Nothing is certain, including financial forecasts
Our latest data demonstrates how uncertain the operating environment is for businesses. The average number of reforecasts conducted by finance teams jumped 65% in a single quarter – from an average of 9.6 reforecasts  in Q1 to 15.8 in Q2 of this year. Sixty percent of organisations revised their financial plans in the past three months alone. 

This is a direct response to a more volatile operating environment. When assumptions change quickly, businesses need to see the impact just as quickly on revenue, costs, hiring, cash flow, investment, and overall performance.

Shorter planning horizons 
Shorter planning horizons are another way businesses are navigating uncertainty. More than half (54%) of finance teams are not planning beyond six months ahead. Nearly a quarter are only looking as far as the next quarter. Just 6.2% maintain a plan that runs beyond five years. At first glance, this may look like short-termism. But in many cases, it reflects a more agile approach to planning. When markets are volatile, why commit to a three-year plan when the world can change in three weeks?

Planning further ahead is not about predicting the future, but being less surprised by it. It’s no surprise that the businesses with the greatest confidence and resilience are often those that have built the infrastructure to plan continuously, rather than periodically.

AI maturity is enabling businesses to operate through uncertainty 
Finally, AI maturity is emerging as another factor in differentiating between businesses that are best equipped to respond to uncertainty and those that are not.  Among organisations at the earliest stage of AI adoption, 23% describe themselves as “very confident” in their company’s direction. By contrast, amongst the most AI-mature organisations, that figure rises to 75%.

That is not a marginal difference. It is a threefold gap in confidence, and it tracks almost perfectly with AI maturity across every stage in between. This does not mean AI alone creates confidence. But it does suggest that organisations using AI effectively are better equipped to process complexity, model different outcomes, and respond to change at speed. For companies that can continuously plan and reforecast quickly, confidence becomes easier to sustain, even in uncertain conditions.

Is AI spend peaking? 
That said, businesses cannot simply throw AI at a problem and hope for the best. It may be too early to say definitively, but our data suggests that the nature of AI investment is beginning to change. Compared to our Q1 data, Q2 CFO Index indicates that leading firms are planning a smaller AI budget increase than advanced firms. 

This could be an early sign that we’re approaching the peak of AI spend and finance leaders are now looking to move away from pilots and experiments towards AI initiatives that can demonstrate measurable return on investment. 

As AI costs continue to rise, scrutiny will intensify. Businesses will not stop investing in AI, but CFOs will increasingly expect AI initiatives to show clear value, operational impact, and a credible path to ROI.

Designing business operations around uncertainty
Taken together, these findings point to a deeper shift in how the best entrepreneurs, boards, and finance leaders are thinking about uncertainty. The old model was to manage uncertainty, to absorb it, hedge against it, and try to minimise its impact. The new model is to design for it: to build organisations that can reforecast rapidly, hold multiple futures at once, and make high-quality decisions under pressure. 

Those that have embraced this new model are thriving. The common thread is building the ability to process ambiguity quickly, update plans without panic, and use technology to sharpen rather than replace human judgement. In today’s environment, resilience is no longer about having the perfect plan, but about having the systems, people and decision-making culture to keep planning as conditions change.