If you’ve always wanted an assistant but couldn’t justify the headcount, now you can create one (or more) with AI technology. Today’s tools can function like an always-on CFO copilot. Ranjit Rao, a principal in Deloitte’s Finance Transformation and CFO Program, said that the opportunities of an AI assistant CFO are endless: it can instantly surface key metrics, generate real-time reports and cut through layers of financial data to deliver insights that would normally take hours—or days—to produce.

“You share the workload, you share the responsibility—and it allows the humans to start to think about things that they probably haven’t had time or space to think about in the past,” she told me.

Rao and I spoke about many ways that AI can improve the CFO’s office and finance department, as well as the risks to people and security. An excerpt from our conversation is later in this newsletter.

This is the published version of Forbes' CFO newsletter, which offers the latest news for chief finance officers and other leaders focused on the budget. Sign up here to get it delivered to your inbox every Tuesday.

Once again, economic indicators in the last week point to a future—and present—that is both bright and dismal. Annual core inflation in March, which captures the first full month of war in Iran, was 3.2%, up from 3% in February. Adding in more volatile food and fuel prices, headline inflation was 3.5%.

With inflation so far above the Federal Reserve’s preferred 2% margin, the board’s Open Market Committee voted last week to hold interest rates steady at between 3.5% and 3.75%. Last week’s meeting was the final one with Jerome Powell in the chair’s seat, though he said he will stay on as a member of the board of governors after his term expires on May 15, citing the threat of legal attacks and political interference with the Fed’s mandate.

Oil prices surged to their highest level since 2022 last week. On Thursday, Brent Crude futures hit $126 per barrel. Gas prices continued to climb last week, hitting a national average of about $4.48 a gallon this morning—about 30 cents more than a week ago—according to AAA.

However, the stock market also surged at the end of last week—buoyed by a report that GDP grew at 2% in Q1, a 57-year low in new unemployment benefit filings and good earnings reports from tech companies, including Alphabet and Meta. Odds of a recession this year dropped on both Kalshi and Polymarket in response—though neither the stock market nor prediction markets are complete indicators of how consumers feel about the economy going forward.

Many were surprised Monday morning when video game retailer GameStop made a takeover offer to buy online auction marketplace eBay for about $55.5 billion. GameStop offered to pay $125 a share........

© Forbes