Content
Everything I Make
Video briefs, blog posts, and podcast episodes. Less formal than a book. More useful than a tweet.
Videos
Monthly AI news briefs, plus a back catalog of Essbase and EPM how-tos (the Look Smarter Than You Are series, for the calc-script crowd).
May 2026: Top AI Stories
All your important AI News from May of 2026.
Jun 3, 2026
How to hack Instagram? Through their support chatbot, apparently.
Hackers took over high-profile Instagram accounts (the Obama White House, the U.S. Space Force, Sephora) by opening a support chat and asking Meta's AI bot to move the account to a new email. It said yes. The bot was built to be helpful. Turns out it was also built to never say...
Jun 2, 2026
Should we be scared about Anthropic's new "dreaming" capability?
Anthropic shipped "Dreaming" for Claude agents, a scheduled process that reads an agent's past work between sessions and rewrites its memory so it improves over time. Legal-AI startup Harvey saw completion rates jump roughly 6x.
May 28, 2026
What can a 15-person company do that used to need 15,000?
Anthropic launched Claude for Small Business: a free bundle of workflows that plugs Claude into QuickBooks, PayPal, and the rest of the small-business software stack. No price tag, while OpenAI and Microsoft charge per seat.
May 28, 2026
The AI crown has changed hands three times in eight weeks
Anthropic shipped Claude Opus 4.8 forty-one days after Opus 4.7. The headline numbers look great: SWE-Bench Pro at 69.2 percent, plus a 121 Elo gap over GPT-5.5 on real-world tasks. Anthropic also quietly dropped six benchmarks from the comparison table. The model wars crown has...
May 28, 2026
Has the time come for the fully AI Office of the CFO?
PwC launched a new finance practice (literally named Office of the CFO) built on Anthropic's Claude. It is the first standalone PwC business unit anchored on someone else's methodology/AI. The methodology that funded thirty years of Big 4 billable hours is now a rental.
May 19, 2026
Why are AI layoffs hurting stock prices instead of helping them?
CNBC tracked 23 S&P 500 companies that fired workers and blamed AI. Fifty-six percent are in the red. Fiverr is down 54%, Nike 35%, Salesforce 32%. The market wants AI revenue, not AI cost cuts. The layoff bump is officially dead.
May 18, 2026
Why does a company fire 4,000 people the day it posts a record quarter?
Cisco posted the best quarter in its history ($15.8 billion in revenue) and announced 4,000 job cuts the same day. The layoffs aren't about money running short. They're a roster swap, funded at the peak, when nobody can say the business forced anyone's hand.
May 14, 2026
Blog
Thoughts on AI, finance, MCP servers, and whatever else is worth the keystrokes.
AI is eating the work that trains your next CFO
AI is taking over the entry-level finance work that quietly trained every controller and CFO, so the apprenticeship now has to be designed on purpose.
The Model Is the Wrapper
Anthropic shipped Claude Opus 4.8 forty-one days after Opus 4.7. The model is now infrastructure. The orchestration layer is the product. What a CFO should ask next.
Should We Stop Laying People Off and Crediting/Blaming AI?
The market is rewarding companies that told a real revenue story with their layoffs and punishing the ones that just blamed AI. Cisco vs. Salesforce was the natural experiment. Stop helping yourself into the wrong column.
There Are Two AI Job Markets Now
May 2025 BLS data dropped, and a year of real AI hiring is finally legible. Applied AI engineering rewards you for leaving California. Frontier labs hardened to the coasts.
The Gap Between Small and Big Business Was Always Money
Anthropic launched Claude for Small Business with no per-seat charge. For thirty years the gap between small and big was budget. The budget is approaching zero, and the launch partners are the ones the market just marked down.
How I Built the AI Hub Heatmaps
I pulled raw BLS and OpenAlex data myself instead of citing the citation chain. Here is how, what I found, and where the methodology has limits.
If Musk Wins the OpenAI Trial, What Breaks?
The Musk vs Altman trial is into its second week in Oakland. The jury isn't deciding who's nicer (no one is). They're deciding whether you can convert a charity into an $800 billion business.
Elon Musk Says AI Erases the CFO by 2030. So Just How Wrong Is He?
Musk says AI will replace nearly every job, finance chiefs included, by 2030. The title is fine. The job is about to get much harder.
Asking Good Questions
A podcast exploring how AI and technology are transforming the CFO's office.
Asking Good Questions started because I noticed that the best finance leaders I've worked with across 25+ years all had one thing in common: they asked better questions than everyone else in the room.
Every episode explores how AI, data science, and technology are reshaping the Office of the CFO. Not to sell you software, but to figure out what's actually working and what's still hype.
Zain Oke on Surviving a Corporate Crisis, and Selling to Chobani
In this episode of Asking Good Questions, host Edward Roske sits down with Zain Oke, whose career reads like a masterclass in leadership, resilience, and strategic reinvention. From nearly two decades at Deloitte to the boardroom of Daily Harvest, and now leading automotive operations at AAA Norther
From Oracle to AI Ops: Kellyn Gorman’s Playbook for Future-Proof Data Teams
In this episode, Kellyn Gorman joins us for a candid conversation about what AI really means for data leaders, DBAs, and finance teams. From uncovering hidden bias in system defaults to rethinking how humans and AI collaborate, Kellyn lays out a roadmap that is both pragmatic and inspiring. If you’v
The 4 P's of Finance Excellence: Mark Dendle Reveals His Secret Formula for Business Transformation
SummaryIn this engaging conversation, Mark Dendle and Edward Roske explore the evolving landscape of finance, emphasizing the integration of AI, the importance of teamwork, and the common challenges faced across various industries. Mark shares his leadership philosophy, highlighting the significance
Why Sipei Bowman Says Accountants Have the ‘Highest Pain Tolerance’ in Tech
In this episode of "Asking Good Questions," host Edward Roske sits down with Sipei Bowman, a trailblazer in the realm of digital transformation within the finance sector. With over two decades of experience, Sipei has been at the forefront of revolutionizing financial systems at Jackson Square Aviat
From Silicon Valley to Ukraine Battlefields: Gauthier Vasseur Democratizes AI for 2,000+ Non-Coders
oin Edward Roske and Gauthier Vasseur as they explore the democratization of AI, bridging the gap between academia and real-world applications. Discover how AI is transforming industries from Silicon Valley boardrooms to Ukrainian resilience efforts. Learn about the power of natural language coding
Why Dave Mitchell Says AI Will Replace Your CFO Before 2026 (And He's Not Wrong)
In this episode of Asking Good Questions, host Edward Roske engages with finance expert Dave Mitchell, who shares insights from his extensive career spanning traditional accounting to digital media and consulting. They discuss the evolving relationship between technology and finance, the impact of A
'I Got Tired of Cleaning Up Accounting Messes': How Kristen Berdar Turned Her Frustration Into a Multimillion-Dollar Business
SummaryIn this episode of Asking Good Questions, Edward Roske interviews Kristen Berdar, a partner at BST and Company, who has pioneered virtual accounting solutions. They discuss the transformation of finance and accounting, the challenges of traditional models, and the impact of technology and AI
Anna Tiomina's Bold Prediction: Finance Teams Will Be 'People and Robots' by 2030 - Part 3 of 3
SummaryIn this conversation, the speakers discuss the future of finance in relation to AI, emphasizing the importance of interpersonal relationships and networking in a remote work environment. They explore the evolving roles of finance professionals, the impact of AI on entry-level positions, and t
Want to be a guest? Have a topic you'd like covered?
Get in touch →Interviews
Interviews (sometimes I'm asking, sometimes answering), conference talks, and a few webinars from across the web.
EPM Coffee Chat Episode 16: AI in EPM with Edward Roske
Long-form coffee chat with the Toronto EPM User Group crew (Arun, Azmat, Fred, and Harsh) on AI in EPM: what gets automated first, how planning shifts from human-first to computer-first, and why knowing when a number is wrong still beats producing it fast. Some Oracle roadmap talk too (Autonomous Database, MCP, Essbase), plus a straight answer on what AI means for entry-level finance jobs.
Lost His Dad at 27, Then Built a Billion-Dollar Company
Long-form sit-down with Crystal Bai on losing my father at 27, founding interRel two months later, and the 25 years between that decision and merging into Argano. Some grief, some accidental career advice, and a fair amount about why founder companies and family companies are not as different as people pretend.
Edward Roske Interviews Paul Lepine of Grant Thornton at Kscope25
From the ODTUG podcast booth at Kscope25 in Grapevine, Texas. Edward sits down with Paul Lepine, Grant Thornton's Alliance Director for Oracle and NetSuite across North America, with 15+ years inside Oracle before that.
Edward Roske Interviews Tim Tow of Applied OLAP at Kscope25
From the ODTUG podcast booth at Kscope25 in Grapevine, Texas. Edward sits down with Tim Tow, founder and president of Applied OLAP, creator of Dodeca, and the first Oracle ACE Director in the Hyperion / Essbase community.
Edward Roske Interviews the Accordion Crew at Kscope25
From the ODTUG podcast booth at Kscope25 in Grapevine, Texas. Edward sits down with the crew from Accordion, the private-equity-focused financial consulting firm with a major Oracle EPM practice (and the team that absorbed Platform Specialists in 2024).
Edward Roske Interviews the Infosys Team at Kscope25
From the ODTUG podcast booth at Kscope25 in Grapevine, Texas. Edward sits down with the Infosys team on Oracle Cloud, EPM, and what the partner ecosystem looks like at global scale.
Edward Roske Interviews Abhi Nerurkar of EPMware at Kscope25
From the ODTUG podcast booth at Kscope25 in Grapevine, Texas. Edward sits down with Abhi Nerurkar of EPMware, a recent Kscope speaker on enterprise master data and Oracle PCMCS integrations.
Edward Roske Interviews Charlie Yousef of Version 1 at Kscope25
From the ODTUG podcast booth at Kscope25 in Grapevine, Texas. Edward sits down with Charlie Yousef of Version 1, the global Apex and Oracle consultancy.
Academic Publications
Research from my Master of Data Science at SMU (4.0 GPA, Outstanding Graduate).