Tried AI on real finance work and got back something you would never send?

Can you point at an example of good, or can you only describe one?

Ever written off a tool on the strength of one bad Tuesday?

HIGHLIGHTS OF EPISODE

The first time I opened Microsoft Copilot for Excel I gave it three months of revenue data and one sentence, asking why a line wasn’t working, and when it handed back something unformatted and generic I decided the tool was junk and didn’t open it again for two months.

I was the problem.

A new analyst gets weeks of context before anyone judges the work, and I gave the model a sentence. This episode is the three things missing from that handoff: context, standards, and the job you picked. Adding context took my output up about 80%. Attaching one report my leadership had liked took it to 95%.

If you work in FP&A and AI has burned you once, this is the fix, and it takes about 10 minutes.

RESOURCES AND LINKS MENTIONED

Microsoft Copilot for Excel, the tool in the story

The 3 questions to run before your next prompt, covered at 12:40

The reversibility test for choosing what to hand over, covered at 11:17

The F9 Finance AI Library, free prompts and templates: https://www.f9finance.com/ai-library/

This episode’s sponsor is Finance AI Lab. Members who finish their first four roadmaps get about seven hours a week back. Fifty-nine dollars a month, cancel anytime. https://www.f9finance.com/lab/

Contact -> hello@f9finance.com

Podcast -> https://www.f9finance.com/podcast

Connect -> Finance AI Lab, the private community for finance pros learning AI: https://www.f9finance.com/lab/

Instagram -> @f9finance

TikTok -> @f9finance

Resources -> https://www.f9finance.com/ai-library/

Next Steps:

Step 1: Subscribe to our YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@f9finance/

Step 2: Get a free set of ready-to-use AI prompts and templates for finance work with the AI Library: https://www.f9finance.com/ai-library/

Step 3: Ready to launch your finance team into AI? Join the Finance AI Lab: https://www.f9finance.com/lab/

Excel at AI in Finance is for the finance pro, executive, and CFO looking to take their work to the next level. Mike is a senior finance leader breaking down AI tools like Claude, Microsoft Copilot, and beyond to reduce hours and prevent burnout. If you’re ready to break free from burnout in corporate finance and FP&A, it’s time to invest in AI for Finance.

What if the AI win you keep bragging about isn’t actually finished?

Why can a 30% drop in your exception count mean nothing got fixed at all?

What happens when your AI report quietly stops working, and your CFO finds out before you do?

Eighty percent took minutes. The rest took weeks. I’m sharing how I built an AI-assisted reconciliation that looked finished in eleven minutes, then broke the moment I tried to run it again, and what it actually took to make that automation hold up under a CFO’s scrutiny. If you’re an FP&A team already bragging about your AI win, this is the test to run before you promise anyone a repeat performance.

• The 20-minute drift test, for checking whether your AI output holds up before your CFO sees it
• The three questions to ask before you promise a delivery date on any AI in finance project

This episode’s sponsor is Finance AI Lab. Members who finish their first four roadmaps get about seven hours a week back. Fifty-nine dollars a month, cancel anytime. https://www.f9finance.com/lab/

• Contact -> hello@f9finance.com
• Podcast -> https://www.f9finance.com/podcast/
• Connect -> Finance AI Lab, the private community for finance pros learning AI: https://www.f9finance.com/lab/
• Instagram -> @f9finance
• TikTok -> @f9finance
• Resources -> https://www.f9finance.com/ai-library/

• Step 1: Subscribe to our YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@f9finance/
• Step 2: Get a free set of ready-to-use AI prompts and templates for finance work with the AI Library: https://www.f9finance.com/ai-library/
• Step 3: Ready to launch your finance team into AI? Join the Finance AI Lab: https://www.f9finance.com/lab/

Excel at AI in Finance is for the finance pro who wants AI to actually hold up under a CFO’s scrutiny, not just look good in a demo. Mike is a senior finance leader breaking down AI tools used in FP&A, reporting, and automation, to cut hours and avoid burnout.

Why did the finance teams who called themselves most mature at AI cost control do worse than everyone else?

If Technology says it owns AI cost 55% of the time and Finance says 53%, who actually owns it?

Why does 40 to 60% of what an AI feature actually costs never show up on the vendor invoice?

AI spend stopped being an engineering experiment and became a real line on your budget, and in most buildings nobody, not Technology and not the CFO’s office, actually owns it. Nobody owns the number. In this episode, I break down why your pilot number was never going to survive production, the mechanical reason AI cost grows like a triangle instead of a line, and the three levers, ones you already know how to pull, that bring it back down.

• FinOps Foundation, State of FinOps 2026 and the Token Economics guidance
• Deloitte CFO Signals Q2 2026 (200 CFOs at $1B+ companies)
• DoiT and Sapio Research AI spending survey (500 finance leaders)
• Flexera 2026 State of ITAM (512 IT asset managers)
• Datadog State of AI Engineering 2026
• Anthropic prompt caching and batch pricing documentation
• Finance AI Insider, the free weekly newsletter: https://www.f9finance.com/newsletter/

This episode’s sponsor is Finance AI Lab. Members who finish their first four roadmaps get about seven hours a week back. Fifty-nine dollars a month, cancel anytime. https://www.f9finance.com/lab/

• Contact -> hello@f9finance.com
• Podcast -> Apple Podcasts and Spotify: https://www.f9finance.com/podcast/
• Connect -> Finance AI Lab, the private community for finance pros learning AI: https://www.f9finance.com/lab/
• Instagram -> @f9finance
• TikTok -> @f9finance
• Resources -> https://www.f9finance.com/ai-library/

• Step 1: Subscribe to our YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@f9finance/
• Step 2: Get a free set of ready-to-use AI prompts and templates for finance work with the AI Library: https://www.f9finance.com/ai-library/
• Step 3: Ready to launch your finance team into AI? Join the Finance AI Lab: https://www.f9finance.com/lab/

Excel at AI in Finance is for the finance pro who wants AI to actually hold up under a CFO’s scrutiny, not just look good in a demo. Mike is a senior finance leader breaking down AI tools used in FP&A, reporting, and automation, to cut hours and avoid burnout.