AI won’t just automate finance. It will expose fake/meaningless work.

There’s a growing narrative in finance that AI will “free” CPAs, CFOs, and finance leaders from number-crunching and KPI reporting so they can focus on storytelling and strategy.

I think that framing misses the deeper point…

For decades, a large part of finance work hasn’t been about insight or capital allocation, it’s been about feeding bureaucratic systems:

recurring reports, compliance artifacts, dashboards that rarely change decisions, and processes that exist mainly because they existed last quarter.

That’s what some thinkers call fake work:

not fake effort, but work whose primary purpose is to justify systems, roles, or metrics rather than to create real economic understanding. Pointless work.

AI is exceptionally good at this kind of work:

Repetitive reporting

Variance explanations no one reads

KPI production divorced from decisions

Compliance-by-template

Which means AI won’t just optimize finance jobs; it will force a reckoning.

If AI can generate the reports, then the real question becomes:

What decisions actually change because of this analysis?

What risks are we really taking?

What tradeoffs matter?

What story does the business need to hear but hasn’t?

In that sense, AI doesn’t automatically make finance roles more meaningful.

It removes the hiding places.

Finance leaders who thrive in the AI era won’t be the best report producers.

They’ll be the ones who can:

Connect numbers to reality

Say “this metric doesn’t matter”

Challenge the system instead of feeding it

Curious how others in finance are thinking about this shift.

Something does not add up.

A new Business Roundtable survey shows CEO confidence ticking higher, even as many of those same leaders plan to reduce headcount. Thirty-one percent of CEOs now cite labor costs as the biggest inflation driver, which helps explain the contradiction.

At the top: optimism about demand, margins, and long-term growth.
At the operating level: hiring freezes, role consolidation, quiet cuts.

This is not panic. It is margin protection.

CFOs are stuck translating “confidence” into models that assume fewer people doing more work, faster. The risk is not morale. It is execution fatigue.

Is this rational cost discipline in a tight labor market… or a sign leadership confidence is disconnected from day-to-day operating reality?

This is not an AI pilot. It is cost math.

Costco’s CFO says expanded AI and tech adoption is helping offset rising healthcare expenses. Pre-scan technology alone has boosted checkout speeds by up to 20 percent, reducing labor strain and improving throughput.

This is the version of AI CFOs actually care about.
Not content generation.
Not dashboards no one opens.
But shaving structural costs that never come back down.

It also reframes the AI ROI debate. The value is not always revenue growth. Sometimes it is preventing cost creep from eating margins alive.

Is AI finally proving itself as a real cost lever… or are companies just using tech gains to mask benefits inflation?

Wall Street is acting like rates never happened.

Large, highly leveraged acquisitions are resurfacing across media, gaming, and tech. Banks are underwriting again. Private credit is stepping in. Balance sheets are stretching.

The logic sounds familiar. Cash flows look stable. Valuations still make sense. Synergies will cover the debt.

CFOs have heard this before.

What is different now is the refinancing window. Debt taken on today has to survive a world where cuts are slower and capital is more selective.

Are today’s deals structurally smarter than the last cycle… or are CFOs once again betting that macro conditions will cooperate?

This one hit close to home.

A judge granted a motion to reconsider claims against former Starbucks CFO Rachel Ruggeri in the “Triple Shot” shareholder case, calling dismissal of certain claims procedurally improper.

Translation: the CFO is back in the legal crosshairs.

This is part of a broader shift. CFOs are no longer just financial stewards. They are disclosure gatekeepers, risk signalers, and personal defendants when narratives break.

The job is changing faster than the protection around it.

Is CFO legal exposure becoming unmanageable… or is this simply accountability catching up with expanded influence?

Continuity won.

GlobalFoundries appointed interim CFO Sam Franklin to the permanent role as the company navigates heavy capex demands tied to AI and semiconductor supply chains.

Boards often reach for outside names during inflection points. In this case, they chose institutional knowledge.

In capital-intensive businesses, mistakes compound fast. Familiarity with cost structure, customer cycles, and execution risk can matter more than a flashy resume.

In high-capex environments, is internal promotion the safest option… or does it limit strategic reset when the industry shifts?

Quietly, CFOs are voting with spreadsheets.

A National Association of Realtors survey shows businesses prioritizing energy efficiency and operating cost reduction over renewable systems when leasing or buying office space.

Insulation, HVAC efficiency, and utility predictability are winning. Solar and geothermal still lag unless the payback is immediate.

This is not anti-ESG. It is CFO math.

Lower opex today beats aspirational returns tomorrow.

Are CFOs being pragmatic about capital allocation… or slowly walking back sustainability commitments under margin pressure?

This is no longer theoretical risk.

The DOJ has elevated tariff and customs fraud near the top of its white-collar enforcement priorities. Customs and Border Protection is getting billions in funding and thousands of new hires.

That means more audits. Fewer gray areas. Less tolerance for “we interpreted it differently.”

Tariffs are becoming a finance problem, not a trade team problem.

Do CFOs need to treat tariff compliance like tax risk now… or will enforcement intensity fade once headlines move on?