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Zoom CFO on Where She Won’t Use AI in Finance
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By Mark Maurer | WSJ Leadership Institute
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Good morning, CFOs. Zoom is using AI more in earnings prep; OneStream will go private; Eli Lilly nears deal for Ventyx; and AI could help decide your next legal dispute.
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NICOLAS ECONOMOU/NURPHOTO VIA ZUMA PRESS
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Zoom is among many companies applying artificial intelligence in more areas of their finance operations, which has been a hot topic among finance leaders. Michelle Chang, chief financial officer of the San Jose, Calif.-based communications tech provider, spoke to me about its strategy on using AI within accounting and finance—and what sends chills up her spine. Following are edited excerpts of her conversation with the WSJ Leadership Institute.
What are the newest innovative ways in which you’re applying AI to the finance function?
The first way would be in that broad kind of productivity collaboration. It’s not an understatement to say that the AI companion has changed how we do earnings prep and really investor management broadly.
What would have taken you hours to sort of home in on and maybe miss something, now it’s no understatement to say it's saving us hundreds of hours of time annually and frankly getting to better quality.
Some companies use AI to help write the MD&A [management's discussion and analysis] section of their financials, as we’ve reported. How do you think about it?
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Michelle Chang. CREDIT: ZOOM
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[Your story] gave me chills up my spine. I don't know that we're ever going to do that. I think it's one of the most important tonal things that you can get. We still very much have my hands in the tone and the framing because it's such a critical part to investors, but gosh, a lot of that heavy lift and manual stuff is really allowing us to shift the value of our work to really being able to hone our message and then spend more time connecting dots that maybe you couldn't necessarily see.
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Do you use AI at all in your financial reports?
I would say we use it to refine it, but not to prepare it. Maybe it's not fully there in its preparation. We certainly use it in other things that underlie the financials, like we've used AI quite a bit to strengthen controls to be able to see risks in our broad ecosystem to be able to take a lot of the manual heavy lift that many companies took on from the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002.
We use non-Zoom products like Oracle and Clarity for some of the underlying guts of what ultimately gets translated to investors in a K [10-K] or a Q [10-Q]. But now we're at this stage manually doing the K and the Q. I can't picture a day where I want to outsource the MD&A. I think that's too important as a vehicle for investors. Maybe you use it to tighten your words or help you refine.
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Content from our sponsor: Deloitte
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Cash Preservation: Unlock Hidden Cash With AI
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AI and robotic process automation can drastically streamline cash collection automation, helping some companies recover millions of dollars in unapplied credits. Read More
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📆 Earnings
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Albertsons
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Cal-Maine Foods
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Constellation Brands
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Jefferies Financial Group
📈 Economic Indicators
The Bureau of Labor Statistics releases the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey.
The ISM releases its Services PMI for December.
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What Else Matters to CFOs
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Peter Zaffino initially joined AIG as chief operating officer in 2017. CHRISTOPHER GOODNEY/BLOOMBERG NEWS
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Meanwhile, more upheaval in the C-suite ranks…
Peter Zaffino is stepping down as chief executive of American International Group after a turbulent period at the insurer that culminated in AIG insisting it wasn’t for sale. The company also said longtime Aon executive Eric Andersen will take reins.
In November, AIG abruptly scrapped plans to bring in another executive, John Neal, as Zaffino’s heir apparent. The reversal, two weeks before Neal was due to start, was triggered by AIG’s discovery that Neal’s previous employer was investigating an alleged workplace affair.
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Latest AI news
📰 Other headlines
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27%
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Percentage of professional services leaders who say that managing and integrating AI agents into workflows is their top concern, according to Kantata, a business-software provider.
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The WSJ CFO Council Summit
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This March 23–24, financial leaders will gather in Palo Alto for The WSJ CFO Council Summit to examine how CFOs are navigating market volatility, evolving trade and regulatory policy and the growing impact of AI on the future of the enterprise. Join the CFO Council and be part of the conversations shaping the future of finance and corporate leadership.
Request Invitation.
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Content From Our Sponsor: DELOITTE
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Deloitte's CFO Signals Dashboard
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Deloitte’s North American CFO Signals survey gauges CFO sentiment across a number of fronts, including the economy, capital markets, and the issues keeping them up at night. Access the latest survey dashboard here
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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.
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