Good morning. AI has officially entered the mainstream.
At the World Economic Forum in Davos last week, OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar noticed a shift: AI is no longer being treated as a future experiment or side conversation. Instead, world leaders discuss it alongside geopolitics, energy and security, as a central part of economic infrastructure.
But there is a problem. Most organizations are not actually using AI to its full potential. Friar, who joined OpenAI in June 2024, kept hearing the same concern at Davos: “excess capacity.” Simply put, it’s a disconnect between what AI can currently do and what businesses are actually doing with it. The tools are powerful and ready to use, but they are barely integrated into the way most companies work or make decisions. Businesses are only scratching the surface.
There is also new research from OpenAI on excess capacity. You can find out more here.
The tech giant is valued at around $500 billion at its last completed stock sale, with revenues climbing to more than $20 billion in 2025, up from $6 billion in 2024. an interview with Fox’s Maria Bartiromo last week, Friar said, “An IPO is not out of the question; it’s a question of when. »
OpenAI is now deepening its financial expertise. Brother announcement Yesterday, Ajmere Dale joined the company as Accounting Director. Most recently, Ajmere was chief accounting officer at the fintech Block for almost 10 years. And Cynthia Gaylor has been named head of corporate finance, overseeing corporate finance, long-term planning, capital strategy, special situations and investor relations at OpenAI.
I had the opportunity to interview Gaylor in 2021, when she was CFO at DocuSign. Gaylor began her career as an investment banker in the technology sector for 18 years at companies including Morgan Stanley. She also served as head of corporate development at Twitter, then began advising CEOs, CFOs, and boards of directors, on their most strategic imperatives. She went from being an advisor to senior executives to being the CFO of two different companies. Gaylor served on DocuSign’s board of directors for a few years before becoming CFO.
“The financial organization is on a roll right now,” Friar said in his LinkedIn post. “We build, ship and operate at scale, and we do it with rigor, pace and a strong sense of ownership. »
Sheryl Estrada
sheryl.estrada@fortune.com
Ranking
Frank Sluis was appointed financial director of On Holding AG (NYSE: ONON), a premium sportswear brand, effective May 1. Sluis succeeds Martin Hoffmann, who last year took on an expanded role as sole CEO, while retaining his responsibilities as CFO. Sluis has over 25 years of experience. Most recently, he served as CFO for Europe and Indonesia at Ahold Delhaize, a food retail group, a position he has held since 2021. Sluis has also held financial leadership positions at Reckitt Benckiser and Unilever.
Sardar Abubakr was appointed financial director of NetSol Technologies, Inc. (Nasdaq: NTWK), a software provider to the asset finance and leasing industry. Roger K. Almond, the company’s current CFO, will remain with NetSol as chief accounting officer, responsible for global accounting operations. Abubakr brings more than two decades of international leadership experience. Most recently, he served as Vice President of New Business Ventures and Mergers and Acquisitions at Jazz, a subsidiary of VEON Group.
Big deal
Amazon (No. 2 on the Fortune 500) announcement On Tuesday, it will close its Amazon Fresh and Amazon Go storefronts to refocus investments on growth areas. According to the company’s website, Amazon currently operates 14 Go stores and 58 Amazon Fresh grocery stores. Most stores will close by February 1, although stores in California will remain open until mid-March due to state labor notification requirements. Amazon said it would focus on expanding its Whole Foods Market brand and grocery delivery services through Amazon.com.
The company did not reveal how many employees will be affected by the closures, but said in the announcement that it was “working as much as possible to help them find positions elsewhere within Amazon, including within our extensive operational network.”
“Today’s announcement is an important step in Amazon’s broader strategy and should help the company capture additional share in perishable categories where it has historically struggled,” analysts at Wedbush Securities wrote in a note published Tuesday. “The reason this announcement is so important is that Amazon has not yet replaced incumbents in the grocery category, at least for perishables.”
Go deeper
“Gold rises because Trump talks down dollar, fueling ‘narrative of relative US decline’, fears UBS” Fortune article by Jim Edwards.
Edwards writes: “The price of gold hit a new record high yesterday, rising above $5,300. It is up an astonishing 3% this morning, as measured by the Comex rolling contract. Gold has gained 22.31% since the start of the year. It’s not hard to see why. Gold is outperforming as a safe haven for investors bailing out their assets dragged down by the slide of the American dollar. Read more here.
Heard
“While replacing entry-level workers with AI may increase profits in the short term, it will ultimately deplete the talent pool and create real vulnerabilities in the long term.”
—Patrick E. Hopkins, dean of the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University, writes in a Fortune opinion article titled “Soon: A Lost Generation of Employee Talent?