CEOs, CFOs, and chief tax officers agree: Changes coming to the federal and global tax systems might be a real bummer, but even more of them are worried about recruiting and retaining staff and keeping up with the latest tech, namely __________, which we left blank because you’ve probably already guessed what it is.

When parts of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act expire next year, 71% of C-suiters predicted it’ll have a large or moderate effect on their businesses, according to a report KPMG published last week. An even greater share (86%) said Pillar Two, a new global minimum tax for large multinational corporations, will be expensive and cause more tax disputes, while 57% said a 2021 global tax agreement “will be a significant compliance burden.” (Some countries, including some European Union member states, started requiring large companies to abide by the global minimum tax (GMT) this year, but Congress hasn’t passed changes to align US tax law.)

But while the world of national and international tax is big and scary, the 500 C-suiters from companies with annual revenue of at least $1 billion who responded to the survey were more worried about talent and tech. Asked what they expected to become their “biggest disruptors,” 44% were anxious about retaining employees and 44% about using the latest tech, namely AI. Changes to tax laws and regulations followed, at 40%, while 38% and 33% expected trouble from global politics and corporate dealmaking, respectively.

…and the wisdom to know the difference. Like a therapist helping their client focus on what they can change, the report lays out how tax leaders can help their function run more smoothly and make a bigger impact on corporate strategy. The recommendation, in a word: data. In slightly more words: using the data better.

For more on the impact of the GMT, click here.—GD

CFOs are just like your Thanksgiving dinner table: Everyone’s suddenly nervous when the conversation turns to politics.

Three in 10 CFOs said uncertainty about the 2024 election had caused their firms to postpone, dial back, or outright cancel some investment plans, according to a new quarterly survey from the Federal Reserve Banks of Richmond and Atlanta and Duke University.

The election isn’t the only headwind on CFOs’ minds, though. Around 25% of respondents reported “that access to or cost of financing would constrain their capital spending in the next 12 months.” Small firms were more likely than large ones to report those financial constraints.

Still, they’re still planning to invest. More than a third of firms said they’re planning on investing “in structures in the next six months and two-thirds intend to invest in equipment.”

And while a majority of firms said they were investing to “repair or replace existing infrastructure,” CFOs also cited “increasing capacity and offering new products or services” as two of the most common reasons for those investments.

In all, CFOs are actually feeling optimistic about their firms’ economic path, despite election stress.

Click here to continue reading.—NP

From running coach to sous-chef, Google wants its flagship generative AI model, Gemini, to wear a lot of different hats. A new feature called “Gems” helps users mold the system into these various expert personas with a few simple baseline instructions and a name.

The search giant bills these AI specialists as “teammates for each area of your life,” whether that’s at work or in your free time. But how well do these AI “experts” actually perform? We created a few to put them to the test.

First announced at Google’s I/O developer conference in May and rolled out in late August, the feature comes as tech giants have been jockeying to find compelling use cases that can justify the billions they’ve been pouring into infrastructure build-out for the next generation of AI. Companies have also been heralding AI agents—or task-specific instances of foundation models that can take actions beyond chatbots—as harbingers of a new era in the generative AI race.

Google is not the first to offer these kinds of capabilities: OpenAI debuted a similar custom GPT feature late last year that lets users build out their own versions of ChatGPT, and even offer them to others in a GPT store.

One of Google’s big advantages here should presumably be its search functionality, given that it’s the company’s bread and butter. And the Gems do indeed synthesize responses from an array of cited links, whereas GPT relies on Microsoft’s Bing and OpenAI’s media partnerships. But sometimes using the “experts” didn’t feel much different than performing a simple Google search.

To continue reading Tech Brew’s story on Gemini’s performance, click here.—PK