Over the past two weeks, AI has taken a bold step from experimental tool to enterprise-grade platform—reshaping how Finance and Operations leaders think about productivity, cost control, and decision velocity.

The biggest signal? OpenAI’s partnership with Oracle and Microsoft to scale ChatGPT across global infrastructure. This move is more than a technical collaboration—it’s a strategic push to embed AI into the very core of enterprise IT systems, making it easier than ever to apply generative AI to budgeting, reporting, and planning processes.

Meanwhile, Anthropic’s Claude is delivering real-world ROI, powering automation at Brex that cuts hundreds of thousands of hours in expense workflows. And OpenAI’s new ChatGPT Agent, capable of handling spreadsheets and research tasks, shows just how close we are to AI becoming a virtual team member.

In this week’s edition, we break down these key developments—and what they mean for CFOs, COOs, and transformation leaders ready to scale with confidence.

OpenAI partners with Oracle and Microsoft to scale enterprise AI workloads.

In a landmark move, OpenAI has chosen Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) to power its next-generation AI workloads—including the much-anticipated Stargate, its future supercomputer project. This means large enterprises will soon be able to deploy ChatGPT within Oracle and Azure cloud environments, bringing powerful generative AI directly into financial systems, ERPs, and operational platforms. For CFOs and CIOs, this lowers the friction to integrate AI into existing IT stacks—making it easier to enhance planning, automation, and service delivery.

Brex integrates Claude AI to automate financial operations.

Fintech company Brex reported that 75% of its expense management transactions are now automated via Anthropic’s Claude, achieving a 94% compliance rate. This has saved the company an estimated 169,000 staff hours per month—translating into $50+ million in potential cost savings annually. For finance leaders, it offers a blueprint for how agentic AI can drive transactional accuracy, compliance, and operational scale.

Microsoft realizes $500M in AI-driven cost savings—and restructures to go deeper.
Microsoft disclosed that AI integration across customer service, coding, and internal operations has helped save $500 million in productivity and infrastructure costs. The company also initiated layoffs to realign toward a more AI-centric future. For operational leaders, this demonstrates that AI is no longer a peripheral innovation—it’s central to long-term cost and talent strategies.

OpenAI’s new ChatGPT Agent enables autonomous task execution.

OpenAI recently launched its long-awaited ChatGPT Agent—a smarter assistant built on GPT-4o that can perform multi-step tasks like gathering data, filling out spreadsheets, summarizing reports, and even generating presentations. While not yet suitable for high-risk or regulated outputs, it’s a game-changer for FP&A and operations teams that spend hours on research and data prep. Businesses can now envision leaner back-office functions and higher-value outputs from leaner teams.

With hyperscalers like Oracle, Microsoft, and OpenAI making generative AI infrastructure more accessible, and real-world results like Brex’s cost savings becoming public, the message is clear: the tools are ready, and the benefits are measurable.

Business leaders should act now to evaluate:

• Which repetitive workflows can be handed to AI agents
• How to integrate generative AI into existing ERP or financial systems
• The internal capabilities needed to govern and scale adoption responsibly

In next week’s edition, we’ll unpack the latest from Google and AWS, explore LLMs for predictive forecasting, and examine how CFOs are designing AI governance playbooks.