2025 witnessed significant shifts and advancements that are shaping the future of financial strategies. We recently brought together 70+ treasury professionals around the world to discuss what the year looked like for them. 

Three themes kept coming up: AI adoption, stablecoin readiness, and the reality of real-time treasury. Here's what we heard:

AI doesn't need perfect data (and that's the point)

The adoption of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in treasury operations has been a focal point in 2025. One of the biggest misconceptions we're still hearing: "We can't start with AI until our data is clean."

Here's what's actually happening in treasury teams that are making progress with AI—they're not waiting for perfect data. 

AI is designed to handle messy, unstructured data. That's exactly what most treasury teams work with every day. We're seeing successful implementations for variance explanations, transaction clustering, and forecast improvements—all without major data overhauls.

The teams making progress aren't asking "is our data ready?" They're asking "what problem are we trying to solve?" Start with clarity on the use case. The data issue sorts itself out from there.

If you're waiting for pristine data before exploring AI, you're probably waiting unnecessarily.

Stablecoins: watching and learning

2025 didn't see the stablecoin adoption explosion some predicted. But here's what did happen: treasury teams got serious about understanding them.

The Genius Act in the US, plus parallel regulations in Europe, brought real clarity to the space. For the first time, many treasury teams could have informed conversations about what stablecoin adoption would actually mean for their operations.

The discussion shifted from "should we?" to "what do we need to know?" Teams focused on understanding settlement speed implications, counterparty risk frameworks, and compliance requirements. Most aren't implementing yet, but they're positioning themselves to make smart decisions when the right use case appears—particularly for complex international transactions.

Informed readiness beats rushed adoption. Always.

Real-time treasury: The technology is here, but are we?

Banks made continued progress in 2025—faster balance updates, expanded API capabilities, better real-time visibility. The technology infrastructure for real-time treasury is largely in place.

The challenge? Our operational models haven't caught up.

Real-time data only creates value if it enables real-time decisions. Many teams now have visibility they've never had before, but they're still making decisions on yesterday's timeline.

This isn't about pressuring teams to move faster for speed's sake. It's about thoughtfully redesigning processes to actually leverage what the technology enables. The gap between technological capability and operational readiness—that's where the real work needs to happen.

The teams seeing results are treating this as change management, not just a technology upgrade.

Getting the balance right

Across all three trends, one theme kept surfacing: the need for thoughtful automation paired with human oversight.

Teams are increasingly automating the grunt work—data prep, aggregation, reconciliation. The stuff AI handles exceptionally well. But the final decisions? Those stay with humans.

This isn't about not trusting AI. It's about creating clear governance where technology suggests and experienced professionals decide. This balance creates both efficiency and accountability. You get AI's processing power combined with the judgment and context that only treasury professionals can provide.

What this means for 2026

Looking ahead, these aren't separate trends—they're pieces of the same puzzle.

We're moving toward trusted augmentation with AI. Not replacing treasury professionals, but giving them tools that make their expertise more impactful. Real-time decision-making will normalize as operational models adapt. And stablecoins will likely see selective adoption where their advantages are most pronounced.

The teams that will thrive are those building on what they learned in 2025. Compounding progress rather than constantly starting over. That means continuing to experiment with AI, staying informed on stablecoin developments, and gradually shifting operations to leverage real-time capabilities.

The future isn't about choosing between technology and human judgment. It's about combining both to create treasury operations that are more efficient and more strategic.

Watch full recording of the webinar here

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