Riddle time: I act like an article about AI, I look like an article about AI, but I’m not an article about AI. What am I? An article not about AI.

We know—it’s confusing. After all, “AI is the buzzword,” Glenn Hopper, CFO and director at Eventus Advisory Group and author of Deep Finance: Corporate Finance in the Information Age, told CFO Brew. “Finance leaders are hearing from their boards, from the CEOs, from investors. We’ve got to get on this AI train.”

But the main trouble with the “AI will solve all your problems” mentality is that it’s fundamentally backward, Hopper explained. Many finance leaders “have this vision and they just throw AI at it as if it’s going to fix everything,” he added. “If you don’t need AI, don’t overcomplicate it. Just use a system that solves the problem.”

And that’s why this isn’t an article about AI. It’s an article about what gets overlooked amid the AI hype.

Click here for more on what finance should be thinking about AI.—NP

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CFOs should prepare to get out those checkbooks this year. Property/casualty insurance (P/C) industry observers predict 2024 will largely be another year of premium increases, though perhaps not as bad as last year.

“The US [P/C] insurance industry enters 2024 with strong momentum,” experts at global reinsurance giant Swiss Re wrote in a market outlook report. “Profitability was below insurers' cost of capital last year, but strong premium increases, easing claims cost inflation, and higher investment returns began to boost industry results by [the second half]. We expect these trends to continue in 2024, supporting profitability improvement.”

That may be music to insurers’ ears, but what does it mean for buyers? CFOs should expect higher rates in some areas and flat or declining rates in others. Swiss Re experts predicted commercial property rates will increase in the high single digits and commercial liability pricing will grow in the low single digits.

As for what CFOs can expect from other casualty lines, WTW predicted general liability rate growth of 1% to 4%, umbrella liability rate increases of 4% to 8%, and excess liability rate increases of 2% to 7%.

To find out what insurance rates might look like this year, click here.—AZ

Coworking is a weekly segment where we talk to CFOs and other leaders in the finance space about their experiences, their companies, and the larger economy. Let us know if you are—or you know—a CFO we should interview.

Zhi Li is the CFO of Customer.io, a customer engagement platform based in Portland, Oregon. He has also worked in investment banking and as a CFO for a digital healthcare platform.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

How would you describe the importance of mentoring for young finance professionals?

I was fortunate to receive valuable advice from people along the way, so to me, mentorship is a privilege. It’s a way of returning the favor, and hopefully, people will find it valuable in navigating through their careers.

What advice do you have for future CFOs?

Always have a downside case. A key, strategic partner in a fast-growing company is not just about the upside; it’s almost more important to think through different downside scenarios and articulate the impacts and remediation measures when we get things wrong.

Continue reading here.—DA

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Today’s top finance reads.

Stat: $350 million. That’s how much Publicis Health, a health advertising agency, is paying to settle charges that its “predatory and deceptive marketing strategies” for Purdue Pharma contributed to the opioid epidemic. (Forbes)

Quote: “Trusting the data organizations work with is critical for effective decision-making, not only for the office of the CFO but for the entire business ecosystem. This is especially important when dealing with external events that are difficult to predict or hard to control."—Owen Ryan, cloud-based financial operations management platform BlackLine co-CEO, on the “trust issues” that some CFOs have with their data (Journal of Accountancy)

Read: What happens at Tesla now that a Delaware court judge voided Elon Musk’s compensation package last week? (the Washington Post)

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