ACCOUNTING

Credit: Illustration: Morning Brew, Photos: Getty Images

Forget rogue agents. Accountants might want to be looking over their shoulders for the plain-vanilla LLMs.

Claude’s Opus 5 outperformed CPAs on a benchmark test designed to mimic a real month-end close situation, according to AI training firm Mercor, which developed the test. The AI got 100% of the items on the rubric correct, while human accountants got only an average of 37%.

“Models today already seem more meticulous than junior accountants,” Mercor’s researchers wrote in a report. “That’s extremely valuable in a field where small errors can be extraordinarily costly.”

And Opus 5 was also faster, completing the tasks in under 15 minutes, while the humans took from 30 minutes to 3 hours.

The AI was cheaper as well. Mercor compared the token costs of running the LLM to the BLS median salary for accountants, and found the Opus 5 could complete an item on the rubric correctly for $0.21, versus $10.35 for human accountants.

18 months ago, even the best AI models weren’t able to beat human accountants.—CV

      

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THE ECONOMY

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Pop quiz! How are consumers feeling: dour, dejected, or downbeat? Hey, why not all three?

Consumer sentiment took a distinctly dark (call it dour, call it dejected, call it downbeat) turn in October, according to the University of Michigan’s closely watched monthly survey of consumers.

Overall consumer sentiment dipped to 46.3 this month, down from 48.1 in September, per a preliminary reading conducted between September 22 and October 5. That drop brings consumer sentiment near a record-low reading of 44.8 in May. Should October’s preliminary reading hold by the final reading at the end of the month, it would mark the second-lowest sentiment measure yet, according to the Wall Street Journal.

“Frustration over cost-of-living continues to mount, as consumers across the political spectrum believe that the trajectory of the economy has weakened since the beginning of the year,” Joanne Hsu, the survey’s director, said in a statement.

Credit and debit card spending stayed solid, according to Bank of America Institute.—NP

      

EARNINGS

Illustration: Morning Brew Inc., Photos: Adobe Stock

Good thing Santa’s sleigh doesn’t run on jet fuel. The stuff has been getting expensive again, and airlines—not to mention passengers—are feeling the cost.

Delta Air Lines cut its full-year profit forecast after reporting earnings today, citing a surge in fuel prices that added roughly $6 billion to its expected costs this year. Its Q3 fuel bill jumped 62% from a year ago to $4.1 billion, overwhelming still-strong travel demand and higher fares that would have otherwise carried the airline through.

Fuel can account for nearly a third of airlines’ operating costs, according to IATA, and the swings have been big enough to repeatedly blow up carriers’ earnings forecasts. Delta stock dropped today before closing flat.

Delta CEO Ed Bastian told the Wall Street Journal that the company had expected fuel prices to come down by now. “Obviously that didn’t come to pass,” he said.

A round-trip for Thanksgiving is averaging $402, up 31% from last year, Brew Markets reports.—HC

      

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market forces

Francis Scialabba

Today’s top finance reads

Stat: 3.9%. That’s the median view of consumer expectations for inflation over the next 12 months, bringing that benchmark to its highest level since May 2023, according to the New York Federal Reserve. (CNBC)

Quote: “You need to look ahead. You need to kind of play out situations before the actual things happen. On a great day, you can even save the team with a great save. On the other hand, if you screw up, it’s immediately at the scoreboard.”—Basware CFO Martti Nurminen, on the similarities between playing goalkeeper in soccer and the top finance seat (CFO Dive)

Read: Walmart’s “multibillion-dollar struggle” to replace humans with robots. (The Wall Street Journal)

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