AI IN FINANCE

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Many companies aren’t “seeing the game-changing effect[s]” of agentic AI that they expected, because they’re “not optimizing” how they use the technology, according to Deirdre Ryan, global finance transformation leader at professional services firm EY.

Companies are “apply[ing] agentic AI to existing processes” and “tweak[ing]” them, according to Ryan, who estimates she speaks with two to three CFOs a week. While this may drive some “operational efficiency,” Ryan recommends that companies reimagine what they’re trying to accomplish. Then, determine the tasks needed to achieve this result, and “translate these jobs to an agentic finance workforce” with humans in the loop, Ryan told CFO Brew.

“What we’re saying to clients is that you don’t want to do things differently. You want to do different things—and what do we mean by that? What we mean is, understand the capabilities of these disruptive technologies and build in AI,” Ryan said.

Less strategic. What’s true for agentic AI is true for AI investment generally—the focus tends to be process efficiency. In a Gartner survey of more than 200 finance leaders conducted in March, 45% of respondents said their AI investments in finance lean toward productivity, while 20% said theirs lean toward decision quality.

“Many CFOs are prioritizing AI use cases focused on productivity and efficiency. However, boards place greater emphasis on investments that drive growth, improve decision-making, and deliver competitive advantage,” Shankar Keshav, principal analyst with Gartner Finance, said in a statement commenting on the survey in July.

How adoption of AI resembles the rollout of robotic process automation.—LB

      

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ECONOMIC RISKS

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Even before this summer’s rash of heatwaves, European finance chiefs were in a sweat.

According to Deloitte’s spring European CFO survey, nearly half (48%) of respondents said they felt worse about their organizations’ financial prospects than they did three months earlier, which is nearly double the 25% of respondents who said so in Deloitte’s fall survey.

European finance executives haven’t felt that pessimistic since the 2022 energy crisis and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Deloitte’s report on the March–April 2026 survey said.

Waning optimism isn’t too surprising, Deloitte experts noted, due to an energy crisis stemming from ongoing Middle East conflict. The European Commission noted in its spring economic forecast that it expected “weaker economic activity, as the conflict in the Middle East triggers a new energy shock that reignites inflation and shakes economic sentiment.”

Geopolitical risk was a leading concern for the 1,100+ CFOs across 12 countries that Deloitte surveyed. The top geopolitical risks included “energy shocks, Middle East conflict escalation, and critical material disruption—closely correlated risks signaling that CFOs expect compound, systemic shocks rather than isolated events,” according to the report.

Europe’s CFOs are turning to cost reduction and risk analysis.—AZ

      

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MEDICAL BENEFITS

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GLP-1 medications for weight loss are biting into large employers’ budgets, and in some cases coverage has become financially untenable, recent examples suggest.

Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan recently said that the company is spending more than $250 million annually on GLP-1s, representing 13% of its total healthcare spending. BofA has no plans to drop coverage, though, as Moynihan cited both short- and long-term benefits for the workforce and the bank, which anticipates spending less on healthcare for obesity-related conditions, such as cardiovascular events.

Starbucks, on the other hand, recently stopped covering GLP-1s for weight loss, Business Insider reported on Aug. 7. The coffee chain isn’t the only high-profile employer to do so—PwC told US staff it would no longer cover the medications for weight loss back in the spring, according to the Financial Times. Though neither company disclosed its GLP-1 spend, a recent survey indicates that the costs of this drug category are prompting some large employers to reconsider coverage. Nearly eight in 10 employers surveyed by the Business Group on Health, whose members include large organizations, said GLP-1s were driving an increase in their company’s health costs, and 10% say they likely wouldn’t continue coverage in 2027.

Such examples show how the rising popularity of GLP-1s are affecting decision-making around benefits, even as policymakers seek to lower the cost of the medications.

As more GLP-1 drugs come to market, prices should come down, HR Brew reports.—CV

      

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market forces

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Today’s top finance reads.

Stat: More than $200 million. That’s how much money was lost to train robberies in the US in 2025. 🚆 (Bloomberg)

Quote: “AI slop is a double-edged sword in that a lot of these platforms experienced upticks in engagement as a result of it. But then, it got to a point where it became a liability because there’s so much flotsam and jetsam that it’s now hard for users to find the kind of quality that they’re looking for.”—AI expert Paul Shovlin (New York Times)

Read: What CFOs and finance leaders would do if quarterly reporting became optional. (WSJ)

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