OpenAI’s CFO insists AI won’t replace judgment

Good morning. I can report that CFO Daily readers are very curious about what OpenAI is up to when it comes to its finance department. Last week, I wrote about how OpenAI is using ChatGPT Work—and heard back from many of you about the need to have people on a finance team who know when to push back on what AI says. OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar shared the article in a LinkedIn post on Sunday, writing that ChatGPT Work lets teams “spend less time reconciling the past and more time planning the future.”

AI doesn’t replace financial rigor or human judgment, Friar wrote—it helps teams find issues sooner, ask better questions, and get insights to the business while there’s still time to act. “As we help other companies transform how they work with AI, it matters that we lead by example,” she wrote.

As of Monday, the post was racking up likes and comments aplenty, many echoing the same idea: AI speeds up the information reaching decision-makers, but judgment and accountability stay human. Variations of “human accountability remains” or “people still need to use their judgment” showed up in at least seven comments. One commenter put it directly: “The distinction between automating analysis and outsourcing judgment is an important one.” Others framed it as an industry shift—AI turning finance from a “reactive… painful scramble” during close into “a core strategic partner for the board.”

Friar........

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