Good morning. Many chief monetary officers are investing in AI whereas nonetheless taking a measured strategy—one which will appear overly cautious from the attitude of chief data and expertise officers.
EY’s newly launched 2025 Know-how Danger Pulse Survey, primarily based on responses from greater than 400 U.S. executives at firms with over $1 billion in annual income, reveals a rising hole between finance and expertise leaders on AI priorities.
In line with extra knowledge shared with CFO Every day, 56% of CFOs vs. 70–72% of CIOs and CTOs say AI integration is a prime precedence over the following two to 4 years. EY mentioned this hole displays monetary warning that might gradual innovation and result in siloed AI growth—elevating compliance dangers and stalling progress. The survey additionally discovered that 77% of CFOs are focusing their AI efforts on monetary reporting, whereas 83% of CIOs are prioritizing IT infrastructure.
Jim Okas, EY Americas’ deputy expertise threat chief, and Daryl Field, assurance expertise threat chief, informed me that CFOs should act as strategic enablers of transformation, aligning funding throughout finance and tech.
Siloed AI efforts, Okas warned, can result in compliance failures, redundant spending, and missed innovation alternatives. To keep away from this, CFOs, CIOs, and CTOs ought to align on shared rules, handle threat collectively, and guarantee tech investments help the enterprise as a complete, he mentioned.
CFOs may also help scale AI by specializing in use instances that drive effectivity and strategic perception, Field suggested. By measuring AI’s ROI and monitoring its influence on compliance, productiveness, and value, finance leaders also can construct belief throughout the C-suite, he added.
Governance and assurance take middle stage
Regardless of AI’s strategic promise, governance stays a prime concern. Eighty-one % of executives, total, rated Sarbanes–Oxley Act and Inner Management over Monetary Reporting as “very” or “extremely important,” and 78% cited System and Group Controls (SOC) reporting as vital to audit readiness, in response to the report.
Nonetheless, EY shared that amongst CFOs, the main target is sharper: 90% ranked SOC reporting as a excessive precedence. The agency calls this an indication of “financial anxiety”—a want to strengthen oversight earlier than increasing automation and AI adoption. The survey underscores a central pressure: the best way to innovate responsibly with out weakening cyber resilience or regulatory integrity.
For CFOs, the query is now not in the event that they’ll undertake AI—however the best way to do it with management.
***Upcoming Occasion: Be part of us for our subsequent Rising CFO webinar, Optimizing for a Human-Machine Workforce, offered in partnership with Workday, on Nov. 13 from 11 a.m. to 12 p.m. ET.
Leaderboard
Earl Ellis was appointed CFO of Panera Bread, a fast-casual restaurant chain. Ellis most lately served as EVP and CFO at ABM Industries. Throughout his tenure, he led international finance, accounting, investor relations, and procurement, helped form the corporate’s strategic plan, and executed a multi-year transformation together with ERP modernization. Earlier than ABM, Ellis held senior finance management roles at Finest Purchase, together with CFO of Finest Purchase Canada and SVP of finance within the U.S., Canadian Tire, Campbell Soup Firm, Kraft Meals, and Coca-Cola.
Steve Shinn was appointed VP and CFO of The Aerospace Company (Aerospace), efficient Oct. 20. Shinn lately served as performing CFO at NASA in the course of the presidential transition and brings greater than 25 years of expertise. Shinn held more and more accountable roles over the course of his 15-year profession at NASA, together with deputy CFO, deputy CFO for middle operations, and CFO at NASA Goddard House Flight Middle. Earlier than that, he was accountable for all enterprise and challenge management capabilities and the annual enterprise planning for the area division at Johns Hopkins College Utilized Physics Laboratory.
Massive Deal
Amazon Internet Providers (AWS) skilled a significant outage on October 20 that disrupted the web sites of a number of main companies, together with Snapchat, Hulu, crypto trade Coinbase, and the net brokerage Robinhood. The difficulty has since been resolved, in response to AWS.
The outage started early within the morning when a surge of experiences on Downdetector indicated widespread issues with AWS, which in flip affected tons of of companies counting on its cloud infrastructure. The corporate later confirmed that the disruption was brought on by a Area Identify System (DNS) error affecting its US-East-1 area.
AWS posted on its Well being Dashboard that “all AWS services returned to normal operations” at 6:53 p.m. ET on October 20.
Going deeper
“AI ‘Poseurs’: A Hidden Risk,” an evaluation by Korn Ferry, explains that as workers are requested to make use of AI, some really feel pressured to faux or exaggerate their abilities. However at what value to companies?
Overheard
“With Apple on the doorstep of joining Nvidia in the $4 trillion market cap club, it’s clear to us that Cook & Co. have finally found success with iPhone 17 and now the Street awaits for the grand strategic AI roadmap to be unveiled.”
—Wedbush Securities analysts wrote in an organization report on tech large Apple, launched on Monday night. Apple is scheduled to report its fourth-quarter 2025 earnings on October 30.
That is the online model of CFO Every day, a publication on the traits and people shaping company finance. Join free.
