Finance
Making a business case for AI
Good morning. If you’re a CFO, you’ve been in a board meeting—or will be very soon—communicating your plan to invest in AI. For some insight into that process, I sat down with veteran tech CFO Mark Hawkins. His first piece of advice? “Clearly and unambiguously define the use case.”
“The less difficult it is to understand, the more credible the opportunity,” he explained. “When people can’t explain it, as a seasoned executive, it creates a yellow flag for me.”
Hawkins spent more than 40 years in corporate finance, most recently as president and CFO of Salesforce, which then appointed him president and CFO Emeritus, a position he held through November 2021. He’s also been CFO at Autodesk and Logitech, and he held various positions at Dell and Hewlett-Packard (HP).
Bringing it back to AI, it’s important for CFOs to share with board members “the math, the ROI, the metrics of success” to help build credibility but also be transparent about any risks, and work on building trust, Hawkins said. “It would be wise to really articulate the governance framework for technology,” he added.
It’s also important to make clear the opportunities and potential outcomes—and how those align with the company’s overarching goals and principles.
“When you’re presenting to a super-sophisticated group of technologically advanced people, and most of them could have deep engineering and science backgrounds, it’s a different level of dialogue,” Hawkins continued. Use cases often require additional details, for example.
By 2027, spending on AI software likely will grow to $297.9 billion, with a compound annual growth rate of 19.1%, according to Gartner. The firm’s research also found that boards are asking about AI more than three times as often as considerations tied to cloud computing.
During our conversation, I asked him his personal thoughts on AI, which he compared to electricity, also “a big paradigm.” Artificial intelligence, he said, is going down the path of augmenting people’s abilities and productivity, a journey that potentially includes significant value creation and a chance to create business models that don’t yet exist.
Hawkins also took a moment to reflect a bit on his own journey, including when, at age 21, he joined HP—at the time, a $3.1 billion company. In 2023, its annual revenue was $53.7 billion.
“It was the beginning of my journey into technology,” Hawkins said, “and I’ve been there ever since.”
Sheryl Estrada
sheryl.estrada@fortune.com
Leaderboard
Matt Lesmeister was promoted to CFO at flyExclusive, Inc. (NYSE American: FLYX), a private charter jet company, effective June 25. He will succeed interim CFO Billy Barnard. Lesmeister joined the company on May 30 as EVP and chief of staff and has 14 years of public company experience across various finance roles. Most recently, he served as VP of transformation and strategy at Fox Factory Holding Corp., Before that, Lesmeister served in various roles of increasing responsibility at United Technologies Corporation.
Kevin Nihill was named CFO at Rhinebeck Bancorp and Rhinebeck Bank (Nasdaq: RBKB). Nihill replaced former CFO, Michael McDermott, who retired from the bank after 23 years. Nihill most recently served as EVP and CFO at St. Mary’s Bank. He also served as SVP and treasurer at Berkshire Bank.
Big Deal
Mercer recently published new research about the impact of AI on productivity. The findings, created in partnership with Oxford Analytica, suggest that AI may boost developed markets’ GDP growth up 0.5%, with emerging markets potentially seeing a 0.2% boost in GDP growth.
Another key finding is sectors will experience different AI-enabled productivity boosts: finance and insurance (14%), information and technology (13.4%), manufacturing (6.9%), health care and social assistance (6.3%), transportation and warehousing (5.7%), and hospitality and food service (3.1%, according to Mercer.
Going deeper
“Federal Reserve governor says AI is ‘not going to replace’ central bankers—at least not yet,” is a new Fortune report by Michael del Castillo. He writes: “Lisa Cook, a Federal Reserve governor, isn’t afraid of losing her job to robots anytime soon. Speaking at an Economic Club of New York event on Tuesday, Cook said that when you’re a central bank governor every word counts in a way that not only caught her off guard at first but that likely will catch AI off guard for quite some time.”
Overheard
“By taking a human-first approach and developing AI tools that solve problems everyday people experience, businesses can reach a global audience with broad demographics.”
—Matthieu Rouif, CEO and cofounder of Photoroom, an AI-powered photo-editing app, writes in a new Fortune opinion piece.
Finance
Accelerating AI for financial services: Innovation at scale with NVIDIA and Microsoft
Always on the cusp of technology innovation, the financial services industry (FSI) is once again poised for wholesale transformation, this time with Generative AI. Yet the complexity of what’s required highlights the need for partnerships and platforms calibrated to fast-track solutions at scale to capitalize on AI-era change.
Financial institutions have an unprecedented opportunity to leverage AI/GenAI to expand services, drive massive productivity gains, mitigate risks, and reduce costs. Across financial services markets, GenAI can play a role in several areas, including:
- Optimizing product and service innovation
- Enhancing contact center interactions
- Delivering personalized banking experiences
- Modernizing code
- Detecting fraud
- Creating predictive analytics and forecasting for investment insights
- Empowering agent and advisors
According to NVIDIA’s State of AI in Financial Services 2024 Trends report, 43% of respondents are already using GenAI in their organization. What’s more, three quarters consider their AI capabilities to be ahead of or right in line with their peers. More than half (51%) say they are confident that AI will be critical to their companies’ future success.
GenAI-powered financial services use cases
Across the sector, GenAI is empowering innovation and enabling new work patterns. Among them:
- Banking: Organizations are delivering personalized solutions with recommendations and enhancing customer service operations with avatar-assisted services and Natural Language Processing (NPL) chatbots that fulfill service requests promptly. GenAI is also helping to improve risk assessment via predictive analytics. In one example, BNY is deploying NVIDIA’s DGX SuperPOD AI supercomputer to enable AI-enabled applications, including deposit forecasting, payment automation, predictive trade analytics, and end-of-day cash balances.
- Trading: GenAI optimizes quant finance, helps refine trading strategies, executes trades more effectively, and revolutionizes capital markets forecasting. Using deep neural networks and Azure GPUs built with NVIDIA technology, startup Riskfuel is developing accelerated models based on AI to determine derivative valuation and risk sensitivity. GenAI can also play a role in report summarization as well as generate new trading opportunities to increase market returns.
- Payments: GenAI enables synthetic data generation and real-time fraud alerts for more proactive, accurate, and timely fraud monitoring. As new fraud patterns are identified, GenAI is used to create synthetic data and examples used to train enhanced fraud detection models. GenAI also helps identify patterns that assist in Suspicious Activity Report generation for anti-money laundering, greatly reducing investigation time.
NVIDIA + Microsoft: Partnering for AI transformation at scale
Given the pace of change, FSI companies need to lean into the right partnerships and resources to enable innovation. NVIDIA and Microsoft have a longstanding relationship centered on AI, and over the last two years, the pair have aligned GenAI offerings built from the ground up on Azure and the NVIDIA AI-enabled GPU stack.
Microsoft’s Azure infrastructure and ecosystem of software tooling, including NVIDIA AI Enterprise, is tightly coupled with NVIDIA GPUs and networking to establish an AI-ready platform unmatched in performance, security, and resiliency. The NVIDIA DGX SuperPod is the fastest path to AI innovation at scale, delivering a full-stack, turnkey solution that eliminates design complexity and facilitates time to deployment.
The partners have a shared commitment to secure and responsible AI development, and experts and services are available to streamline capacity planning, provisioning, application performance testing, and user/DevOps training at each phase of the GenAI deployment cycle.
The bottom line
Microsoft and NVIDIA’s decades-long collaboration is unleashing a full spectrum of AI foundations and services that together will quick-start the AI revolution for financial services solutions.
Read more from NVIDIA and Microsoft
https://blueprintforai.cio.com/
Finance
Concurrent Partners with TIFIN @Work to Elevate Workplace Financial Solutions
Combining Advisory Expertise and AI-Driven Insights to Deliver Real Financial Impact
BOULDER, Colo. and TAMPA, Fla., Dec. 18, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — Concurrent, one of the fastest-growing RIA aggregators in the United States, has partnered with TIFIN @Work, an AI-powered workplace growth platform, to deliver a more focused and personalized approach to workplace financial solutions. The partnership combines TIFIN @Work’s AI-driven tools with Concurrent’s advisory expertise to deliver clear, actionable outcomes for employees, employers, and advisors.
“Concurrent’s rapid growth has been built on our ability to deliver personalized, scalable solutions that meet the unique needs of clients,” said Casey Bates, Managing Director of Strategy and Growth at Concurrent. “Our partnership with TIFIN @Work strengthens our offering, combining cutting-edge AI technology with our proven advisory strategies to create financial solutions with real impact.”
TIFIN @Work’s AI technology delivers tailored actions to employees, helping them optimize their financial strategies—whether it’s optimizing paycheck contributions or planning for long-term goals. Concurrent ensures these insights are put to work, providing the expertise needed to make decisions that benefit both employees and their employers.
“This partnership is about creating better wealth outcomes with tailored solutions that truly make a difference,” said Marc McDonough, CEO of TIFIN @Work. “By combining our technology with Concurrent’s advisory experience, we’re offering a solution that directly addresses the financial needs of the workplace, creating practical value for all involved.”
The integration of TIFIN @Work’s platform with Concurrent’s advisory services provides employers with a streamlined approach to supporting employees. The result is improved engagement, stronger financial confidence, and greater opportunities for advisors.
About Concurrent
Concurrent is a multi-custodial, hybrid registered investment adviser (RIA) created to give independent advisors all the resources they need to grow their businesses and adapt to the evolving financial needs of their clients. Headquartered in Tampa, Florida, Concurrent was established in 2017 by former advisors, business owners and industry leaders to cultivate a national network of independent providers of unbiased, fiduciary advice.
Investment advisory services through Concurrent Investment Advisors, LLC (“Concurrent”), an SEC Registered Investment Advisor. To learn more about Concurrent, visit www.poweredbyconcurrent.com.
Finance
4 money experts reveal how to reflect on your personal finances — and set goals for 2025
The end of the year is a time of reflection for many, and while some will look back on their experiences and achievements, money experts say it’s just as important to take stock of your finances.
Staying on top of your spending may have seemed like an uphill struggle this year as wages have often failed to keep up with the increased cost of living. In the U.S., Bankrate’s 2024 Wage to Inflation Index found that between January 2021 and June 2024, prices increased 20%, but wages only rose by 17.4% over the same period.
As a result, nearly half of Americans say they are living paycheck to paycheck, according to a recent Bank of America survey.
“The end of the year can be a great time to reflect on your finances, but it’s important not to be hard on yourself,” Tamara Harel-Cohen, co-founder of financial wellbeing app RiseUp, told CNBC Make It.
Harel-Cohen advised against scrutinizing every penny spent because it’s not possible to always meet your financial goals.
Meanwhile, Sarah Coles, head of personal finance at Hargreaves Lansdown, said there’s always room for improvement where money management is concerned.
“It can feel that as long as you get to the end of the year roughly in one piece financially, you’re probably OK. However, this approach leaves you vulnerable to neglecting key aspects of your finances,” Coles said.
CNBC Make It asked four financial experts for their top tips on reflection and money management as the end of the year approaches.
‘Have self-compassion’
It’s a “common phenomenon” in December for people to feel ashamed about how they handled their money, Vicky Reynal, a financial psychotherapist and author of “Money on Your Mind,” told CNBC Make It.
“One thing that I would say is to have self-compassion,” Reynal said. “There’s almost a sense that everybody feels they should be better than they are.”
This can stop us from thinking productively about how to turn things around, Reynal said. The truth is that managing finances is “not an innate skill,” and it’s often not taught by schools or parents.
“So we pick it up as we go, and we’ll inevitably make mistakes. But all we can do is, rather than simmer in in guilt and shame, we can use that and reframe it in terms of: What can I do differently? What do I want to do differently next year financially?” Reynal added.
‘5 cornerstones of sound finances’
Hargreaves Lansdown’s Coles suggested an audit of five key money areas.
“We should specifically take stock of the five cornerstones of sound finances: Are your short-term debts under control? Do you have the right things in place to protect your family – including life insurance and a will? Do you have enough emergency savings to cover three-to-six-months’ worth of essential spending? Are you on track with pension saving? And are you investing to make more of your money where you can?” she said.
Understanding where you are financially within these five key areas can help you create the foundations of a budget and new money goals, Coles added.
Don’t make budgeting complicated
A lot of money resolutions in the new year fail because they tend to be overcomplicated, according to Reynal.
“People, sometimes, will come proudly to me and say: ‘I’ve set up this spreadsheet, it’s 30 tabs. I’m going to be recording all my expenses.’ But that’s not sustainable,” Reynal said. “I would always encourage people to keep it simple and find the right tools.”
She suggested using budgeting apps and investment platforms that cut out the work for you.
“It will simplify and enable a cycle in which you’re feeling empowered. You’re getting small wins, and that kind of perpetuates a virtual circle in which you’re starting to build confidence that: ‘Look, I managed to do it this month, and so maybe I’ll manage to do it next month,’” she added.
Harel-Cohen agreed, saying even a “five-minute check-in” with yourself in the morning about how you’re going to spend money during the day will help you make better decisions without feeling overwhelmed.
“Remember, improving your financial wellbeing is a marathon, not a sprint,” Harel-Cohen added.
Small, lasting improvements
The second reason that many money resolutions fail is because they’re too ambitious, according to Reynal.
“There’s a lot to be said about small wins in terms of building confidence, building a sense of agency, and building momentum,” she said, adding that setting “small, actionable goals,” is the route to success.
Harel-Cohen advised automating monthly payments into your savings account to achieve long-term goals such as holidays or retirement.
She said: “After setting this up, just sit back and forget about it.”
Consider your feelings
It’s okay to treat yourself on occasion too, according to Ylva Baeckström, a senior lecturer in finance at King’s Business School.
Spending money shouldn’t always be anxiety-inducing, she said. “What did you really spend on things you don’t really need? And how did it make you feel spending that money? Did it make you anxious or stressed or did it make you feel good?” Baeckström said.
“If it made you feel anxious you need to change your habit. However, if it made you feel good, it may be worth continuing to allow yourself this particular luxury. Allow yourself some treats that make you feel good and cut the spend that makes you feel anxious,” she added.
-
Business1 week ago
OpenAI's controversial Sora is finally launching today. Will it truly disrupt Hollywood?
-
Politics5 days ago
Canadian premier threatens to cut off energy imports to US if Trump imposes tariff on country
-
Technology6 days ago
Inside the launch — and future — of ChatGPT
-
Technology5 days ago
OpenAI cofounder Ilya Sutskever says the way AI is built is about to change
-
Politics5 days ago
U.S. Supreme Court will decide if oil industry may sue to block California's zero-emissions goal
-
Technology5 days ago
Meta asks the US government to block OpenAI’s switch to a for-profit
-
Politics6 days ago
Conservative group debuts major ad buy in key senators' states as 'soft appeal' for Hegseth, Gabbard, Patel
-
Business3 days ago
Freddie Freeman's World Series walk-off grand slam baseball sells at auction for $1.56 million