Oh look, another AI article. But wait. This one is about the one-two punch of AI news from recent weeks that finance professionals need to understand, so keep reading.

The most frequently cited barrier to AI implementation around the world? Data management, per a recent study from S&P Global Market Intelligence, which polled more than 1,500 AI practitioners at midsize to large organizations around the world.

“The meteoric rise of data and performance-intensive workloads like generative AI is forcing a complete rethink of how data is stored, managed, and processed,” Nick Patience, a senior research analyst at a division of S&P Global Market Intelligence, said in a statement. “Organizations everywhere now have to build and scale their data architectures with this in mind over the long term.”

Increasingly, that’s what CFOs are thinking about as well. But before organizations can scale up their data infrastructure, they need to prepare the basics first, experts told CFO Brew.

Click here for more on data management best practices.—NP

When managing equity comp for your organization, you know it can sometimes be a painful journey. Usually, that means jumping through hoops, trying to pull the right reports with the correct data, and maybe not getting the resources you need to make sense of it all.

Fidelity is here to help. From startup to IPO and beyond, their equity solutions provide service excellence and expertise. We’re talkin’ integrations with benefit solutions and secure technology that make the equity maze a total breeze.

Best of all? Fidelity is here to help your company in every phase of the corporate life cycle, from day 1 to forever. That’s right; you can get guidance from a longtime innovator in financial management for…wait for it…eternity.

Make equity headaches a thing of the past.

It’s looking like a slow cooldown.

The number of available jobs last month dipped below 9 million for the first time since March 2021, according to data released Tuesday by the Labor Department. In July, there were 8.8 million unfilled job openings, seasonally adjusted, down 338,000 from June.

That’s a fresh sign that the job market is steadily cooling—but it’ll take some time before job openings dip to perilous levels. There are still 1.5 job openings for every unemployed person. By comparison, there were 1.2 openings for every unemployed person in 2019, and that was a fairly solid year for jobs.

The Labor Department’s latest data tucks neatly into the economic narrative of the last few years. In March 2022, job openings hit a 12 million peak, marking the highest number on record. That was after two years of pandemic-related job turmoil, and notable worker shortages.

How slow was hiring last month? Click here to find out.—NP

Companies will have to be a lot more open about their tax bills after the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) passed a new income tax disclosure standard after years of controversy.

Under the new standard, public and private companies will now have to identify and catalog income taxes paid at the state and federal levels, as well as foreign income tax payments, in their annual financial reports. Companies will also have to report the enactment of new tax laws and the effect of cross-border tax laws.

Currently, companies are only required to disclose the total cash tax payments they make, their effective tax rates, and tax benefits or expenses.

The new standard was first proposed in 2016 but businesses resisted the changes for years, claiming the proposed standard was too confusing for investors and could potentially expose business secrets. However, FASB said that investor demand drove the new standard and that it will increase transparency for investors.

Click here for more on the new standard.—DA

Today’s top finance reads.

Stat: $28.88 billion. That’s how much profit Swiss bank UBS posted last quarter. Sergio Ermotti, UBS CEO, told CNBC that $28.93 billion in negative goodwill from the absorption of rival Credit Suisse made up most of the profit number. (CNBC)

Quote: “Overarchingly, we believe that the consumer is in a good place. But as we have said, they are making careful choices and trade-offs right for their households.”—Best Buy CEO Corie Barry on how consumers are becoming more careful with spending. (the New York Times)

Read: Walter Isaacson spills the tea on Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter. (Spoiler: It ain’t pretty.) (the Wall Street Journal)

Metrics matter: Ardent Partners’ new report reveals what top AP organizations are doing to achieve touchless invoice processing and the value it provides. For the key stats, download the report, AP Metrics that Matter in 2023.*

^{*A message from our sponsor.}

^{*A message from our sponsors.}

*A note from Fidelity

Some products and services are not available to employers outside of the United States.

Learn more at https://www.fidelityworkplace.com/s/equity.