Good morning, CFOs. RSM’s U.S. unit makes a big investment in AI; Aon CFO Edmund Reese on tariffs, growth opportunities and megatrends; plus, anxieties about inflation remain.

RSM’s U.S. unit plans to invest $1 billion in artificial intelligence over the next three years, well above its previous investments, in part to use AI agents to automate more tax and accounting workflows.

The funds would go toward integrating generative AI into internal workflows as well as platforms the firm provides to middle-market companies and overall helping clients with their AI strategies, said Sergio de la Fe, enterprise digital leader and partner with RSM US. Some of the $1 billion will also go toward building the core AI infrastructure predictive models, talent upskilling and partnerships.

RSM is the largest accounting firm outside of the Big Four in the U.S., based on revenue, with a focus on providing middle-market businesses with audit, tax and consulting services. Ninety-two percent of middle-market companies, which typically have $10 million to $1 billion in revenue, said they have experienced challenges with implementing AI, a new RSM US survey found.

The investment marks a step up from the $150 million to $200 million that the Chicago-based firm spent on AI the past three years, as well as an opportunity to codify and industrialize its AI work, de la Fe said.

Monday

Earnings: Casey’s General Stores

Apple’s WWDC kicks off in Cupertino, Calif. The company is expected to introduce new iterations of operating systems for its various hardware platforms. The conference runs through Friday.

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York releases its Survey of Consumer Expectations for May.

Tuesday

Earnings: Academy Sports and Outdoors, Dave & Buster's Entertainment, GameStop, GitLab and J.M. Smucker

The National Federation of Independent Business releases its Small Business Optimism Index for May.

Wednesday

Earnings: Chewy, Oracle, SailPoint and Victoria’s Secret

The BLS releases the CPI for May.

Thursday

Earnings: Adobe and RH

The BLS releases the PPI for May.

Friday

The University of Michigan releases the Consumer Sentiment index for June.

Global insurance broker Aon is benefiting from tariff uncertainty as its roster of global clients seek guidance on how to manage global trade issues and supply chain changes under the Trump administration.

The company also is seeing a boost from greater interest in updating insurance plans ahead of the hurricane season, its chief financial officer said.

Aon CFO Edmund Reese said that while the tariff turmoil hasn’t directly affected Aon’s professional services business, the implementation and suspension of various tariffs have significantly disrupted various clients’ supply chain and business planning, creating demand for the company’s risk management consulting business.

The Wall Street Journal spoke with Reese about how Aon and its clients are grappling with trade duties, growth opportunities and megatrends in the workforce and weather. Here’s a condensed and edited transcript.

WSJ: How is Aon responding to U.S. tariff policy, and what are you hearing from your global clients?

Reese: Inflation is generally positive for our top line because it means insured values are going up, so not just tariffs and cost of products, but building materials, labor costs. When you’re replacing loss, the wages are going up, medical costs are going up, all asset values are going up.

Those things are typically benefits for our business because we’re helping broker these assets, the risk associated with these assets within their capital, and our compensation is dependent on the value of those assets.

When I think about inflation and these items, there’s a bit of a headwind to our expense space, but we’re always thoughtful about cost discipline and we get over that. So the tariffs, the inflation, those things are positives for our businesses.

WSJ: Aon is holding your first investor day in 20 years this week. What are the priorities that you want to communicate?

Reese: After a long history of market performance—any metric, shareholder returns, free cash flow, organic growth—there was a question about whether Aon had reached like a peak or was at an inflection point. I see an opportunity for us in the next phase of growth and helping investors understand that we have an outlook for sustainable organic revenue growth, helping them understand that we can both invest and drive market expansion for strong earnings growth and strong free cash flow, what I call having higher earnings power.

WSJ: Where are you looking for growth? You’ve had a long history of divesting assets. Are divestitures still a big part of that story?

Reese: Investors are asking, can you continue to expand margins, and we’re saying not only can we expand margins, but we can invest at the same time because of Aon business services.
We divested 16 noncore assets last year, generated three-quarters of a billion dollars. If something is lower margin but high capital intensity and doesn’t have the growth rates that we want, we don’t have big pockets of that anymore, but we continue to actively manage the portfolio, so you’ll see us divest assets.

To read the full Q&A, click here.

Wall Street’s worst fears about the trade war—that escalating tariffs could sink the global economy—have receded. But anxieties about inflation remain.

Price pressures subsided as a driver of markets when inflation cooled from the red-hot levels of recent years. But with traders and money managers racing to gauge how President Trump’s trade war is affecting businesses and households, this coming week’s readings on consumer and producer prices could spark a new round of market turbulence.

“We are trying to work out how tariffs will be split between price increases and perhaps job losses,” said Irene Tunkel, chief U.S. equity strategist at BCA Research. “This will take months to play out.”

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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.

You can reach us by replying to any newsletter, or email Walden at walden.siew@wsj.com.