Meet your new coworker: the AI finance bro.

Consulting firm Gartner predicts finance professionals and AI will be sharing job responsibilities in the future. A shared job refers to one that is “carried out by both AI and a person together,” Amanda Joseph-Little, VP in Gartner’s finance practice, said in a recent Q&A.

A shared job might look like a human managing an AI’s work—aka the “managerial model”—or both the human and the AI analyzing the same data and then working together to create better insights and learn from one another, or the “competitive model.”

Unlike current digital tools, AIs in shared jobs will influence business decisions, she said.

“The managerial model is more challenging because you actually have an individual managing work that is performed by AI rather than managing work that is performed by another person,” Joseph-Little told CFO Brew. “I think the concept of managing AI versus managing a person is harder to conceive of than compared to the competitive model, where it’s the AI and a person partnering together…I think it is less intimidating to think about using the AI to help me get smarter and do my job better.”

Gartner predicts that merging financial responsibilities between professionals with AI counterparts will lead to a complete restructuring of the finance organizational chart.

Click here for more on how finance and AI could be merging.—JK

Leading Indicators is a CFO Brew series on important or interesting KPIs. Is there a unique KPI in your industry you’d like us to know about? Get in touch with us at [email protected].

There’s been a lot of talk recently here at CFO Brew about profitable growth. We recently spoke with CFOs of two tech companies who have helped shift the mindset from “growth at all costs” to balancing growth with judicious capital spending.

In addition to discussing company strategy, these CFOs also shared the metrics they monitored to help them move toward and/or maintain profitable growth.

Monitoring margins. Larry Roseman, CFO of Thumbtack, an app that connects customers with home services from contractors to landscapers, told us the company had “double digit EBITDA margins” and positive free cash flow last year.

Roseman listed a number of indicators he follows to ensure Thumbtack remains on track for profitable growth. One of them is contribution margin, which is the difference between total revenue and variable costs. Roseman described variable costs as “things that you have to spend to get revenue.”

For more on profitable growth metrics, click here.—AZ

Consumer sentiment plummeted last quarter, as concerns about tariffs and the stock market weighed on everyone’s minds. Some restaurant chains have suffered amid this decline in sentiment, recent earnings calls suggest, while others have risen to the challenge and prospered.

Chipotle, for instance, had a rough quarter. Its same-store sales dipped 0.4%, the first time they’ve dropped since 2020. Revenue came in below analysts’ estimates, and the company lowered its same-store sales guidance for the year. KFC, Pizza Hut, and Starbucks all saw US same-store sales drop year over year, and Starbucks’ EPS was down 50% year over year.

Chipotle CEO Scott Boatwright pinned his chain’s weak quarter on dampened consumer spending due to uncertainty about the economy. The company performed a “visitation study” and found that “saving money because of concerns around the economy was the overwhelming reason consumers were reducing the frequency of restaurant visits.”

Promotions and a value focus are helping some chains thrive: But other restaurant chains are seeing gains in the same macroeconomic environment. Taco Bell—owned by Yum Brands, the same company that runs KFC and Pizza Hut—saw its overall US sales grow by 11% and its same-store sales by 9%. And Chili’s is downright booming: It enjoyed 31% same-store sales growth and 21% growth in foot traffic year over year. Its parent company, Brinker International, saw its EPS more than double YoY, from $1.08 to $2.56.

Keep reading here.—CV