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Good morning, friends. Boards approved the AI budgets in 2026 but skipped the governance framework to track whether they worked. Now renewal season is here and most CFOs don't have numbers to show a board. Also today: Eide Bailly joins the PE consolidation wave and AI is now the leading tool for faking expense receipts.
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In This Morning's Issue
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Most CFOs approved AI. Now they can't measure it.
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No. 01
| CFO INTELLIGENCE
| Lead Story
Most CFOs approved AI. Now they can't measure it.
Boards approved big AI spending in 2026 but skipped the governance step. A Grant Thornton survey found 75% of boards approved major AI investments, but 48% set no governance rules and 46% had no risk oversight. IBM surveyed 2,000 C-level executives and found 85% had no real-time visibility into what they spent.
The Signal — Without a measurement system, AI spending just renews without scrutiny. McKinsey found that teams focused on just two or three workflows got $3 back for every $1 spent. The firms skipping that step are renewing subscriptions they can't defend when the board finally asks. What to watch: Renewal season is the moment of reckoning. CFOs who can't name what each tool owns or what it cost before the tool arrived will not have an answer when the board asks.
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External links — the most worth-clicking AI items from around the web this week.
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Workflow of the Week
Taxfyle Plan (taxfyle.com)
Taxfyle just launched Plan, an AI-native tax strategy platform built for registered investment advisors. It turns the manual tax planning workflow into a structured AI-driven process tied directly to client investment data.
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NOW AVAILABLE: Whispers of Nystad
The wait is over. Whispers of Nystad is out now. A historical thriller where a coded letter can end a war. Follow Elsa across a frozen Baltic frontier as empires collide and every message carries a price. Available in paperback and ebook.
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Nexairi Sandbox
New tools and web apps are rolling out. See what's live and what is next.
Visit Nexairi Sandbox →
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Find Your Ikigai — Free Tool
Answer 16 questions about what you love, what you're good at, what the world needs and what you can be paid for. Nexairi Wayfinder maps the overlaps and tells you exactly what it means for your career.
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From the Archive
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That's the dispatch.
If something here changed how you think this week, hit reply and tell me. I read every one.
— Jim
Jim Smart · Founder, Nexairi
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— The Letters Desk —
Write back. We're listening.
Every reply lands in the editor's inbox. Tell us what hit, what missed, or what we should chase tomorrow — one sentence is plenty.
Or just hit reply. [email protected]
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