Quipu CFO

Probabilistic AI. Deterministic Problem. Welcome to this edition of QuipuCFO. This week: what happens when AI meets arithmetic in Excel, why the errors are invisible, and the architectural principle that prevents them. The second article connects this to the broader question of why 40% of agentic AI projects will fail by 2027, drawing on a framework I recently published in FP&A Trends. Every Final-Year Number Was Wrong SumProduct, an Excel modeling consultancy, tested Excel’s new COPILOT...

Why AI Costs Up to 10x More Than Planned Most finance leaders think of AI as a software investment. You evaluate it, approve the business case, and the budget line gets set. What follows is largely an operational matter. That mental model is wrong. And it's costing organisations more than they expect. AI has a fundamentally different cost structure than any enterprise software you've managed before. Traditional software investment is front-loaded: licence fees, implementation, integration,...

The Agent Governance Gap Introduction This newsletter helps CFOs think better about AI decisions. Each edition tests frameworks from the CFO AI Playbook against real evidence and delivers one concrete action. This edition: Building the Finance AI Stack covers AI architecture for finance, applying McKinsey's mesh concept to finance systems. Who Owns Your AI Agents? discusses agentic AI: when agents carry out processes semi-autonomously, who takes ownership and how do you measure impact? The...

CFOs from No to ROI: Upskill, Don't Downsize Welcome to QuipuCFO This newsletter helps CFOs think better about AI decisions. Each edition tests frameworks from the CFO AI Playbook against real evidence and delivers one concrete action. This week: Research shows a stark reality. 97% of executives see the CFO as "the department of No". Finance remains trapped in transactions. Use AI to bridge the gap. The Playbook publishes Q1 2026. Your feedback shapes the final work. AI Turns CFO from No to...

80 Iterations, One Insight: Why AI Costs Work Differently Welcome to QuipuCFO Happy New Year! This newsletter helps CFOs think better about AI decisions. Each edition tests frameworks from the CFO AI Playbook against real evidence and delivers one concrete action. Kicking off 2026, I built a Finance AI Agent that turns 1,800 pages of SEC filings into executive-ready analysis in under 10 minutes. Four days, 80+ iterations, and countless failures taught me what the Playbook documents: trust in...

QuipuCFO Newsletter The 32-Point Gap: Why Half of CFOs Think They've Adopted AI — But Haven't Welcome to QuipuCFO This newsletter explores how finance leaders can implement AI strategically: separating what works from what doesn't. Each edition examines real cases, surfaces patterns from research, and offers one concrete action you can take this week. I'm developing The CFO AI Playbook — a complete implementation methodology covering the full CFO decision journey: from strategy and process...