COST CONTROL

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In a post-tokenmaxxing world, finance leaders are wondering how to set limits for AI use among teams and individuals in their companies. And, more simply, where to start?

Establishing limits for internal AI use is not a novel concept. As CFO Brew wrote in July, it’s a dilemma finance leaders know well: How do you control costs while encouraging AI innovation?

Field CTO Amit Kinha of DoiT, a cloud intelligence and finops platform, told CFO Brew that the “slush fund” for operational efficiency-focused AI token spend that existed last year is now a thing of the past. “This year, due to market conditions or the maturity of things like agents, it’s not enough to just say, ‘Yeah, everyone gets carte blanche access,’” he said.

Two buckets. Chris Andersen, CFO of Flexera, said he thinks about AI usage as two different buckets: enterprise productivity-focused AI and consumption-driven AI.

“We want everybody to have [AI], we want everybody to get used to it, it should make them more productive. That’s a cost that we invested in the business a while ago, and at the corporate level, we knew how much it was, we made room for it, we did that in the hopes that it would drive enterprise-wide productivity,” Andersen said.

Where to start with limit setting.—Demi Lawrence

      

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AI can help finance teams move faster, from drafting and forecasting to variance analysis and close activities. But there’s a tricky part: knowing when to trust what comes back.

Confidence depends on the data underneath and the controls and review around it, and not every job calls for the same approach. Speed is easy to find, but trust takes a little more work.

Director of the Wharton FP&A Program Christian Wattig walks through four ways finance teams can use AI today:

• Chatbots handle drafting and one-off models.
• Connect AI to live ERP data through secure, governed access.
• Get verifiable answers inside the ERP.
• Use AI agents to run repeatable, multistep finance workflows with human approval.

Each fits a different kind of work. Choosing wisely at the beginning can save time later. Download the practical guide and match the approach to the task before you commit to one.

BANKING

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With one interest rate hike under the Federal Reserve’s belt and perhaps more in the near future, naturally the topic of rates arose in financial institutions’ third-quarter earnings calls.

Banking CFOs touted the strength of their balance sheets, reassuring investors that loan demand has remained strong, a CFO Brew review of recent quarterly earnings calls shows.

In recent commentary, Fitch Ratings noted that while the largest US banks had a strong third quarter, “the higher-rate environment still poses challenges.” The largest banks reported year over year revenue growth in Q3, citing “strong commercial and consumer loan growth, investment portfolio repricing, and disciplined deposit cost management,” the ratings agency added.

Interest rates affect bank’s margins and income, so managing a bank’s balance sheet becomes paramount.

For example, KeyCorp CFO Clark Khayat said on the Cleveland-based bank’s Oct. 20 earnings call that the bank “continue[s] to manage our balance sheet to a fairly neutral interest rate position over a 12-month horizon, which we view as prudent from a risk management perspective, given continued rate uncertainty.” Translation: the bank’s assets and liabilities are structured so market rates have little to no impact on earnings.

Higher rates could also mean price competition for deposits.—AZ

      

CUSTOMER RELATIONS

Illustration: Shannon May, Photos; Adobe Stock

Burger King has the Whopper. McDonald’s has the Big Mac. Wendy’s has the Baconator. For decades, America’s fast-food giants have jostled over who makes the better burger.

But Burger King’s US president Tom Curtis may have found another way to win the fast-food fight—by listening to people who think his burgers aren’t good enough.

Back in February, Burger King debuted an unconventional feedback form: The chain made their CEO’s phone number public, inviting any customer to call in with concerns. Curtis has since received more than 100,000 calls and messages. Curtis personally returns about 40 calls a week, sometimes while sitting at home on the weekends. And while the experiment was supposed to last just a few weeks, it’s been such a smash that it’s still going.

Turns out, customer complaints can be good for business. Burger King has revamped its Whopper with a new bun and better mayo, while upgrading its chicken nuggets and restaurants. Sales of the improved Whopper have risen about 20%, according to Curtis. Last quarter, Burger King’s US same-store sales jumped 8.5%, compared with just 0.8% at McDonald’s.

The burger chain is also rethinking its test rollout of AI-powered drive-thrus, Brew Markets reports.—HC

      

market forces

Francis Scialabba

Stat: $2.1 billion. That’s how much the Republican Party and three super PACs with links to Trump or Congressional leaders have so far raised ahead of the midterms, compared with $1.4 billion for Democratic equivalents. (Bloomberg)

Quote: “What is the price of oil? Eight months into the war with Iran, what should be a straightforward question has become surprisingly hard to answer.”—Natasha Kaneva, head of global commodities strategy at JPMorgan (the Wall Street Journal)

Read: Anthropic IPO filing raises questions about insurance risks. (CNBC)

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