Good morning, CFOs. Agentic AI startup Sierra CEO Bret Taylor sees a shift in the economics of AI software; how retailers are coping with cautious consumers; plus, the company that says it can add 10 gigawatts of nuclear energy to the U.S. power grid.

Reminder, the Morning Ledger won't be published Monday due to the Presidents Day holiday. See you again on Tuesday.

Call 2026 the year for AI adoption, especially for larger companies.

“You can’t do anything hardly anymore without your employees using AI,” Kathy Kay, chief information officer of financial services firm Principal Financial Group, told WSJ Leadership Institute reporter Belle Lin at this week’s WSJ Technology Council Summit. “To really get the pace and scale and things that you need, you have to use AI to get there.”

AI bots are here to stay, Kay and other leaders told the WSJLI in our story about how AI agents are becoming widespread among large companies. 

That’s a trend CFOs are well aware of as one of the key C-suite leaders who constantly weigh where to invest in tech and AI, and determine whether they build internally or go to external vendors and experts to do it for them.

I was struck by comments from Bret Taylor, co-founder and CEO of the agentic AI startup Sierra and chairman of OpenAI. Taylor is seeing a shift in the economics of software, and he also remarked on the challenge for company leaders on whether to build or buy AI tech. (Editor's note: News Corp., owner of The Wall Street Journal, has a content-licensing partnership with OpenAI.)

Key quote: “You could argue basically the marginal cost of creating software is going, I'll say to zero. That's hyperbolic. It's not actually going to zero, but it's going way down. And for every single one of your businesses, I imagine software engineering was the scarcest resource, the hardest to hire for ... and it begs a lot of interesting questions. How does it change build versus buy?”

He said at the summit that “if you have a vendor who hasn't really kept pace with innovation for the past decade, and all of a sudden you've got this coding agent over here, and you come across that renewal cycle, gosh, the leverage has really shifted.”

Taylor also gave some examples of a “purpose-built vendor” that might perform tasks like antitrust reviews for acquisitions, or a company’s quarterly financial audits, noting that “rather than paying Ernst & Young to audit your financials every quarter, you can have this AI agent audit it for 1/10 the cost. You'd probably take that call.”

✏️ CFOs, do you think AI could actually do the auditing work for your company? Hit Reply to this email with your answers, and we may feature some reader responses in a future newsletter.

📆 Earnings

• Cameco
• Enbridge
• Moderna

📈 Economic Indicators

The BLS releases the consumer price index for January.

The AI boom has boosted demand for electricity and new power plants and created long bottlenecks in connecting projects to the power grid. One nuclear-power startup says it has found a workaround for the industry’s twin stumbling blocks: the expense and time it takes to build reactors, Jennifer Hiller writes in an exclusive report.

Project developer Alva Energy said it could add 10 gigawatts of nuclear energy to the U.S. power grid—the equivalent of nine or 10 large reactors—in the near term by boosting output at dozens of existing nuclear plants.

Background on investors: The startup named for Thomas Alva Edison has support from former Intel Chief Executive Pat Gelsinger, a general partner at the venture firm Playground Global, which led Alva’s recent $33 million fundraising round. Investors include the nuclear-power-focused investment firm Segra Capital Management, NGP, Joe Lonsdale’s 8VC and the nuclear-power influencer Isabelle Boemeke.

📰 Other headlines

• Tech Shares Lead Broad Selloff as AI Concerns Resurface
• Forget the ‘Sell America’ Trade. Here Comes ‘Hedge America.’
• Justice Department’s Antitrust Chief Leaves Post After Clashes With Leadership
• Americans With Higher Incomes Are Starting to Fall Behind on Payments
• Detroit Automakers Take $50 Billion Hit as EV Bubble Bursts
• The AI Gold Rush Is Breaking a Silicon Valley Taboo: Cashing Out Before the IPO
• 🎧 Podcast: How Retailers Are Coping With Cautious Consumers

📈 Earnings wrapup

• FedEx Targets Higher Revenue in Fiscal 2029
• Telus Names Former CIBC Chief Dodig Successor to CEO Entwistle
• Instacart Profit Falls Following $60 Million Settlement With FTC
• Airbnb Logs Mixed Fourth Quarter Amid Ambitious Investment Plans
• Coinbase Swings to a Fourth-Quarter Loss Amid Crypto Meltdown
• Crocs Posts Better-Than-Expected Holiday Season as New Products Gain Traction
• SoftBank Loads Up On Debt to Pay for OpenAI Bet
• British American Tobacco Turns Cautious on Guidance Despite U.S. Growth
• Ubisoft Shares Jump on Cash Forecast
• L’Oreal’s Shares Drop After Soft End to the Year
• Air Canada Swings to Profit, Logs Higher Sales in Fourth Quarter

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The Wall Street Journal's CFO Journal offers corporate leaders and professionals CFO analysis, advice and commentary to make informed decisions. We cover topics including corporate tax, accounting, regulation, capital markets, management and strategy.

Follow us on X @WSJCFO. The WSJ CFO Journal Team comprises reporters Kristin Broughton, Mark Maurer and Jennifer Williams, and Bureau Chief Walden Siew.

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