CFOs’ optimism about the US economy rose in Q1

Sponsored by

Being asked to do more with less? You got this. With Bill Pay from QuickBooks, you can manage more invoices without more staff. See how it helps you process hundreds of bills, pay them in minutes, and automatically reconcile books (in one place).

CFOs are feeling a bit of a pep in their step, according to a recent Federal Reserve survey.

Even though tariffs remained top of mind in the first quarter, the 473 CFOs surveyed by Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business and the Federal Reserve Banks of Richmond and Atlanta were feeling optimistic.

CFO optimism about the US economy rose to 61.7 from 60.3 in Q4 2025, and more than half of the respondents said they expected goods and services demand to increase in the next 12 months versus the past year.

The survey was conducted from mid-February to early March, as the war in Iran began to bring major disruptions to the global oil markets, but the responses didn’t show “differences in attitudes among those who responded before or after the start of US airstrikes on February 28.”

After tariffs and trade policy, the top CFO concerns were labor quality and availability, demand and sales, and uncertainty.

The survey also showed that concerns around AI and its impact on spending and employment remain; “companies reported increased investment in AI in 2026, with expected increases in labor productivity gains due to AI.”

Researchers found “little evidence of substantial AI-driven employment decline, although some companies—especially larger firms—anticipate a shift away from routine clerical jobs toward more skilled technical jobs and tasks.”

However, Sonya Ravindranath Waddell, VP and economist with the Richmond Fed, said in a statement that “the February employment report might have been soft, but business expectations for both demand and hiring in 2026 held up among respondents.”

A Workday survey last fall found that more than a third of the time employees saved using AI was negated by having to redo the work, CFO Brew previously reported.

Even amid the uncertainty, CFO respondents to the Fed’s survey still believed that they’d be able to increase revenue by a median of 5% YoY in 2026, and boost prices by a median of 3%.