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Disruptor
To:Brew Readers
CFO Brew // Morning Brew // Update
What DeepSeek means for business.

Hello, and welcome to Monday. How about those job numbers? Did you see how the Bureau of Labor Statistics really came through in the clutch? But, real talk, you know they had help from the refs coming up with those employment figures.

In this issue:

Fast and cheap?

Cool it

Game of chicken

Drew Adamek, Alex Zank, Alex Vuocolo

TECHNOLOGY

DeepSeek CFOs cost

STR/Getty Images

Since the introduction of its latest model, Chinese startup DeepSeek has taken the world of artificial intelligence by storm.

Its innovations could have finance leaders rethinking how much they need to spend on AI tools and development, one expert told CFO Brew.

“I think the huge revolution is not how good it is and how good the outputs are…but just the dramatic cost reduction because of how they use a different kind of architecture,” Conor Grennan, chief AI architect at the NYU Stern School of Business and founder of consulting firm AI Mindset, told us.

Major disruptor. DeepSeek claims to have made its large language model (LLM) for dirt cheap relative to its competitors. The startup wrote in a technical report that it only cost about $5.6 million to train its model.

David and Goliath(s). OK, so DeepSeek is cheaper and it has some neat innovations. But is it really a good substitute for leading US-based AI technologies? Grennan suggested looking at what the biggest thinkers in AI said about it.

Click here for more on weighing DeepSeek’s costs and risks.AZ

Presented By FloQast

RISK MANAGEMENT

Insurance rates fall

Sakchai Vongsasiripat/Getty Images

The cost of eggs may be skyrocketing, but commercial insurance pricing is mostly down—so at least we’ve got that going for us, which is nice.

Global rates fell 2% in the final months of 2024, according to a report from insurance broker Marsh. Q4 marked the second consecutive quarter of commercial insurance rate declines following seven years of increases. Rates in the US specifically were flat last quarter, following a 3% increase in Q3.

Not all the news was good for the cost-minded CFO monitoring insurance rate changes, however.

Casualty insurance was the one major line of coverage that didn’t decrease last quarter; it ticked up 4% globally. US casualty insurance pricing increased 7% in Q4, outpacing rate increases in other regions. This was “driven largely by excess/umbrella rates,” according to the report.

Commercial property insurance rates were down 3%, rates in financial and professional lines were down 6%, and cyber insurance rates fell 7%.

In the US, property insurance rates fell 4%, carrying on the Q3 momentum when rates declined by 1%. US financial and professional lines prices were down 3% in Q4, continuing a downward trend reaching back to Q3 2022. US cyber insurance rates decreased 5%.

Keep reading here.AZ

SUPPLY CHAIN

Tyson Foods truck

Rivernorthphotography/Getty Images

Tyson Foods President and CEO Donnie King assured analysts last week that the meat-processing company is prepared to find new markets if Mexico curbs US imports in response to President Trump’s proposed tariffs.

“Essentially what we would do, whether it be pork or whether it would be chicken, is find other markets,” King said. “We would leverage our global knowledge and expertise to try to move those products if necessary.”

Mexico is a large trading partner for Tyson, he said, but the company is nonetheless confident it can adapt: It has been developing contingency plans around finding new markets for pork and certain chicken parts, such as leg quarters, which make up most of its imports to Mexico.

“Our teams continuously engage in contingency planning to minimize business disruption from trade or supply chain changes,” King said. “As we’ve done in the past, we’ll leverage our global expertise to identify the best markets for our products amid evolving conditions.”

Click here to keep reading Retail Brew’s story on Tyson’s plans for tariffs.AV

Together With Paystand

MARKET FORCES

market forces chart

Francis Scialabba

Today’s top finance reads.

Stat: $44 each. That’s an estimate of how much consumers were expected to spend on food and beverages for yesterday’s Super Bowl. But if that number includes ranch dressing, we blew waaaaaayyyy past our estimated budget. (Retail Brew)

Quote: “This is business as usual. How many businesses run on getting economic data? The entire financial industry should be knocking at the door of the federal government saying, ‘How dare you mess with data that we use to make market predictions?’ I don’t hear anything from them.”—economist Kathryn Anne Edwards on the lack of corporate resistance to Elon Musk’s drastic cuts to US government information and services (CNN Business)

Read: Tips for growing your value as a CFO. (Financial Management)

AIs for the ATT guys: Stop wasting hours doing manual transaction matching. Reserve a spot for FloQast’s webinar, Meet Your Match, and embrace reconciliation’s future. See how professionals can remove roadblocks to scalability by embracing new technologies.*

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