Upskilling for AI is an important part of the career growth plan for next-gen finance professionals. Finance leaders are seeing the positive impacts of AI, according to Part III of our recently released research survey, The state of finance hiring & careers. But they pointed out plenty of potential threats to their organizations’ data quality and controls as well as employee productivity.

Half of the 352 finance executives responding to our survey indicated that employees in their organizations have adopted AI slowly or very slowly, compared with roughly two-fifths (39%) who said their employees have adopted AI fairly to very quickly. One in 10 respondents said employees hadn’t meaningfully adopted AI technology yet (8%) or that their organization doesn’t permit AI use (2%).

Roman Telerman, CFO of application security firm Black Duck, called AI “a change agent, and so you can be fearful of it, you can adapt to it…the spectrum is broad.”

CFOs can make all sorts of promises to boost efficiency and productivity, and cut down on the time to complete tasks. But it’s up to the finance professionals, not the person training them on AI, to determine “how they best drive value or innovate in their role,” Conor Grennan, CEO of AI training consultancy AI Mindset, told CFO Brew in an email.

Keep reading.—CV, AZ

Kevan Krysler has reached two milestones many finance professionals would envy. He made partner at KPMG and then pivoted to industry, first as chief accounting officer of VMware, and then as CFO of a public company: Everpure (formerly Pure Storage). But he hasn’t stopped there. In March, Krysler was named CFO of Carbon Robotics, an ag-tech startup whose investors include Nvidia NVentures.

Founded in 2018 by Uber and Meta alumnus Paul Mikesell, Carbon Robotics topped $100 million in annual revenue for its fiscal year ending January 31, 2026. It’s raised more than $185 million in venture capital and employs around 260 people.

The LaserWeeder, its signature product, uses AI to identify weeds which it then zaps with, yes, lasers. Though they sound like something out of Star Trek, LaserWeeders are actively being used today by hundreds of customers in about 15 countries.

Krysler—who even has weeding experience, having grown up on a farm in British Columbia—spoke with CFO Brew about why he chose to spend the next act of his career in the nascent field of AI in agriculture.

Keep reading.—CV

The financial services industry is trying to balance its enthusiasm for AI with concerns about security.

While the technology can streamline core processes for the industry, it also needs parameters, either at the regulatory level or with safeguards in the tech stack.

Talk to me. One of the ways companies are deploying AI to their operations is to add in ways for apps powered by the technology to communicate important data to stakeholders, according to Danny Kang, CEO of Ducenta Squared Asset Management. His firm uses the technology to translate information about the markets to customers more quickly.

Ducenta, founded in 2020, has $4 billion in assets under management, meaning that the company is deploying this AI-based communication to optimize its portfolio. The AI is effective and secure for customers, Kang told IT Brew, because there’s a clear and workable regulatory and internal framework managing how it’s used.

Keep reading on IT Brew.—EH

Skills gaps are widening across finance teams, with most leaders saying they need to upskill employees to meet 2026 priorities. Here’s where the biggest gaps are—and how companies are responding.