August 11, 2025 • 26 mins
In this episode of the Count Me In, host Adam Larson welcomes Bill Koefoed, Chief Financial Officer at OneStream, for an engaging chat about how AI is revolutionizing finance. Bill breaks down the real-world impact of artificial intelligence and machine learning on financial forecasting, resource allocation, and everyday tasks like contract analysis and account reconciliation.
He also shares why transparency matters with AI, how teams can build a culture of innovation, and what finance professionals should do to keep their skills sharp. Packed with practical advice and firsthand stories, this episode offers an accessible and exciting look at the future of finance with AI. Don’t miss Bill’s expert take on embracing the tech that’s reshaping the industry!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Adam Larson (00:21):
Welcome back to Count Me In. I'm your host, Adam
Larson, and today I'm excited tobe joined by Bill Koefoed, Chief
Financial Officer at OneStream.We're digging into the rapidly
evolving world of AI andfinance, especially how it's
revolutionizing financialforecasting and reshaping what
it means to work in accountingand finance today. Bill shares
his perspective on earlyadoption of AI, why transparency
matters, and how these tools canactually make finance roles more
(00:43):
engaging and strategic. We alsotouch on the essential skills
the next generation of financeprofessionals will need and how
leaders can foster a culture ofinnovation.
Let's get started. Well, Bill,we're very excited to have you
on the podcast today as we'regoing be talking about AI and
(01:04):
financial forecasting. And Ifigured a good place for for us
to start would be how is AIcurrently being leveraged in
finance, in stuff like demandforecasting?
Bill Koefoed (01:14):
Yeah, I mean, demand forecasting is a great
use case for particularly formachine learning, the more
quantitative aspects of AI. Youknow, in today's uncertain
world, people need moreinformation. They need to be
able to do more scenarioplanning. And in Canada, the
stakes are as high as it's everbeen, because if you miss a
(01:34):
forecast, either too high or toolow, you know, it's real money.
And we found a number of ourcustomers have been receiving
better forecasts, and they'vebeen doing it in substantially
less time leveraging AI.
And and that's really a greatopportunity, and and I think
we're just at the early stagesof that.
Adam Larson (01:54):
So we're, you know, we're at the early stages at it,
and and do you think that it'llbe prohibitive of people
adopting it? Because, you know,sometimes when something's in an
early stage, especially of atechnology, they're not so keen
on trusting it, especiallysomething like an artificial
intelligence or like, you know,should I put all my eggs in one
basket kind of thing?
Bill Koefoed (02:11):
Yeah. I mean, I'd say two things about that. One
is there's a lot of hype aroundAI right now generally. And I
think that there's been someimportant use cases there. You
know, I mentioned one obviouslyusing things like generative AI
for helping developers do abetter job in terms of writing
(02:32):
code has been a pretty good ROIassociated with it.
And clearly, call centers havealso been, I think that path is
well worn, and certainly it iswithin our company. But I that
it, I think to your point, kindof begs the question of like,
how transparent are you in theAI, you know, inputs and
(02:54):
outputs? It's one of the thingsthat we've really focused on is
rather than just having a blackbox like some companies have,
which really scares datascientists because they can't
trust. You press a button andout comes a number and you're
like, I don't know how that cameabout. We really exposed the
inputs and the outputs.
(03:16):
And for us, we basically runthis concept of a model arena
where we let different modelskind of compete against each
other such that you get the bestanswer. And that could change
obviously over time. But we giveall that transparency to our
customers, and they want that.If you don't have that
transparency to your point,you're going to really struggle
(03:36):
to get adoption of your AIcapabilities.
Adam Larson (03:41):
So what are some other examples of, you know, how
AI has kind of made asignificant impact? You know,
things like maybe likeallocation of resources with an
organization or other elementsthat you've seen?
Bill Koefoed (03:51):
Well, I mean, mentioned a couple obviously
with our developers and and withwith contact centers. I mean, I
think you're going to see iteven more broadly utilized as I
think people get morecomfortable with use cases.
There's another dynamic,obviously, is that you don't
want proprietary informationkind of domain. The And so
(04:13):
making sure that you've got, youknow, like OneStream is a book
of record for most of ourcustomers, if not all of them,
and you don't want, this is theinformation that's going to Wall
Street. So you don't want thatobviously out in the public
domain.
So how do you actually take inLLM models, use them within your
environment and then be able tolook at, as a finance person,
(04:36):
today, I'd love to look atrevenue by geography, how much
marketing spend I've given, andI want to do it by period. I can
go do that today, but I'm goingto have to have some analysts
that are basically kind ofwrangling and untangling data to
figure that out. Whereas, youknow, this is going to be a
(04:57):
perfect use case of saying like,Hey, I just want my AI agent to
be able to tell me that, and Iwant to be able to do that in a
fast time. The other thing isobviously, I think we're all
looking at whether the data isactually accurate. And I think
that's going to improve overtime.
And so I think there's to someinteresting use cases. I get
asked sometimes, you know, how'sit going to impact finance
(05:21):
employment as an example. And Ithink it's actually going to
really supercharge finance. Some22 year old that's graduating
from college doesn't want tospend all their time just
sifting through data, putting itin the spreadsheet. They want to
use their brain.
And this is going to give them alot more of an opportunity to
get all the information thatthey need to be able to make
better decisions. And I thinkthat's going to actually be
(05:41):
really exciting for the kind ofaccounting and finance
profession.
Adam Larson (05:46):
Well, yeah, especially as, you know, when
when, you know, twenty years agowhen somebody's coming out of
college going into the financeprofession, a lot of things that
those people were doing arehandled by things like AI now.
So it's going to change thelandscape of accounting
education.
Bill Koefoed (06:00):
Well, for sure. And I think part of the issue
that faces the profession todayis that there's less people
going into the professionbecause they don't want to, you
know, you can decide, want to gointo accounting, or I want to go
into investment banking, or Iwant to go into law or some
other profession. And I thinkpart of that was just because
they felt in the accountingprofession that they weren't,
(06:21):
you know, that it was just abunch of, you know, number
crunching, shall we say. WhereasI think this is going to give
them an ability to have a muchmore enriching job and one where
they can add a lot more valuethe company that they work for.
And hopefully that'll turn thetide a little bit in terms of
more people going into theprofession, but certainly it's a
(06:42):
challenge that we've been facinghere over the last few years.
Adam Larson (06:46):
So for people who are in the profession, you know,
how can what how can theyupscale to to be at the cutting
edge? Because, you know,obviously what we were doing
before isn't going to work. Youknow, what we're doing in the
future, technology is constantlychanging and they don't want to
fall behind.
Bill Koefoed (06:59):
Yeah, it's a great question. I think that, you
know, being, you know, having aninsatiable curiosity and really
embracing AI rather than beingkind of nervous about it, I
think would be the advice that Iwould have. Go learn more about
it. Try it. Go on something likeChatGPT and try different
(07:23):
solutions and questions and justget more familiar with how it
works.
Because there are some nuancesin how you ask the question and
what kind of data you provideall that. Clearly there's
application. Ended up using Thefirst time I used it, I used it
for writing a job descriptionfor a new hire that I was doing.
(07:43):
But, you know, the more you getmore comfortable with it, you
know, Microsoft obviously hasCopilot that they make pretty
easily available and use it andtry it and explore. As you do
more, then you'll get morecomfortable with it and you'll
get better at it.
Adam Larson (07:56):
So you mentioned, you know, you've been using it
in your daily life to help withthings like writing job
descriptions. I know people helpwith their emails. You know, are
there other ways that you'veseen, especially people within
the finance and accountingfunction, utilize it for day to
day tasks, maybe even help justmake their jobs more efficient?
Bill Koefoed (08:14):
Yeah. Well, certainly, it kind of borders
between kind of legal andfinance, but being able to go
look in contracts for specificamount, for specific amounts and
or information, if you can putthose all into your LLM models,
it'll help give you moreinsights. You can certainly do
(08:37):
the similar process and look attrends that you have around
pricing and or packaging and ordemand. I mean, there's so many
opportunities for finance peopleto be able to use it just to get
more insights into theircustomer trends. In addition to
that, things like accountreconciliation and transaction
matching are clearly anopportunity to better utilize,
(09:02):
again, a little bit more on thequantitative side, to be able to
use AI and, and again, maketheir jobs more efficient, more
effective, more useful.
The list goes on and I probablyhaven't even contemplated other
opportunities for how people areusing them, but it's a really
exciting time. And, you know, asI said, I think it's going to be
(09:25):
enriching for the profession.
Adam Larson (09:27):
Now, I wanted to touch on something you mentioned
earlier about, transparency. Youwere saying how you guys make
sure you're transparent and openwith how the AI is being used
and the assessment there. Howimportant is it for
organizations to have their ownpolicies around AI, especially,
you know, with organizations youwork with?
Bill Koefoed (09:43):
I think it's really important, again,
particularly, I mean, yourfinancial information is kind of
the keys to your kingdom, right?I mean, it's the most
proprietary, or one of the mostproprietary assets that you
have, especially if you're apublic company. And so, you
know, we obviously take securityvery seriously. And so I think
(10:04):
it's, I think it's reallyimportant that as you start
thinking about, you know, your,your, the AI tools that you want
to use, you do it in the contextof your security environment and
make sure that it's consistentwith that, environment and that
you're protecting yourinformation.
Adam Larson (10:21):
Yeah, definitely. Because it's it's one of those
things where anybody with aconnection to an Internet can
access an AI application. Andwhat are you putting into that?
What does that AI applicationhave access to, you know, and
how are you utilizing it? And Isuppose that's why a lot of
folks when they're working with,software, you know, different
softwares that they're workingwith, a lot of times those
(10:41):
softwares have included somesort of an LLM within their
platform to help, you know,utilize the functionality just
within a safe environment.
Bill Koefoed (10:50):
No, I think that's right. Mean, and I think, you
know, whether it's us orServiceNow or some of the other,
you know, big softwarecompanies, I think you're seeing
that trend pretty consistentlyapplied that you're using AI
within the context of thesoftware provider.
Adam Larson (11:07):
Have you guys run into any, like, around the
conversations around, you know,ethics within the AI platforms?
You know, it's different typesof biases that can get
introduced when when looking atdifferent number forms. How have
you guys addressed those kind ofproblems?
Bill Koefoed (11:21):
Yeah, we've been a little bit more oriented on
quantitative AI than some ofthose issues, shall we say. And
certainly on the LLM side, Ithink they exist a little bit
more. But I think, you know, oursweet spot, given that we are a
financial software company andparticularly around numbers, you
know, again, there clearly canbe errors if if, you know, we we
(11:46):
tend to be more focused on thequantitative side. Okay.
Adam Larson (11:50):
Now, how important is it to have the human side of
an A. I? You know, you have theA. I, but a lot of times people
say you also need the H. Thehuman intelligence, to to kind
of come together.
You know, how have you as anorganization been able to, you
know, utilize the human side tomake sure that the A. I. Is
doing what it needs to do? Andthen also, you know, because,
you know, we want to trust thenumbers that are coming out. But
(12:11):
obviously at some point,somebody has to check things to
make sure things are still onthe right track.
Bill Koefoed (12:15):
Well, I mentioned a couple of these things
previously. I mean, I thinktransparency really matters so
that you can get people to trustyour data. Again, to the extent
that it's it's accessing andfinding data and being able to
expose that data to humans, Ithink, again, that saves people
a ton of time. I mean, justusing, you know, on the
(12:38):
developer side, you know, wehave a lot of developers that
are using it on the LLM side. Iknow I'm going back and forth a
little bit between AI and ML,but on the developer side, like
they love it.
It makes them more productive.They have to spend less time
writing code and they canleverage code that's been done
before. I think it gets a littlebit back to my earlier comment
(13:01):
about just trust and we love theword supercharging, but I think
at least in today's world, Ithink AI has a really great
opportunity to help superchargehumans. And I think that, like I
said earlier, I think that'llenrich people's work, their
lives, and again, theproductivity of the people that
(13:22):
are leveraging it.
Adam Larson (13:24):
Do you think that as we look at how AI is being
interspersed within, you know,especially the finance and
accounting community, do youthink that the lack that the the
lack of people coming into it,less people are coming into
those jobs? Do you think thefact that AI is helping will
take in it will take account forthat for that less people coming
into the industry?
Bill Koefoed (13:45):
Well, certainly it will make people more
productive. And so I think thatwill be quite a good benefit or
positive benefit. I also thinkthat, again, to the extent that
it makes people's jobs moreenriching, I think you could
find more people entering theprofession and you could see
that trend ticking up, you know,from where it's been. I mean,
(14:06):
from the days when I graduatedfrom college, I started my
career in public accounting. Youknow, I reference, sometimes
investors ask me like, you know,why is consolidation hard?
And back when I used to do it, Iused to have this, you know,
yellow paper and you used tohave a column, which is entity
A, and then you'd have a columnthat's entity B, and you had to
(14:27):
eliminate all the transactionsbetween A and B, and you had to
do it all on yellow paper. I hadthis, for big companies, I had
this yellow paper all tapedtogether, but in today's world,
don't have to do that. And soagain, can leverage your brain
more and you can be moreimpactful in the work that
(14:48):
you've done. We did a studycalled Finance 2035 that we
released, I don't know, four orfive months ago. One of the
things that we found is that,particularly for public
companies, that people expectthe CFO and his or her
organization to be morestrategic over the next decade.
Now, the role of the CFO being abackward looking reporter of
(15:14):
information, those days areover. You're seeing the CFO role
helping a CEO look aroundcorners, and the data that we
found from our Finance 2035study really showcased that,
that this is something that CEOsare expecting from CFOs, that
investors are expecting fromCFOs, that, you know, owners are
(15:36):
expecting from CFOs, and I thinkthat AI just really helps
accelerate that trend because,you know, the CFO is really an
important role and can help, youknow, really impact shareholder
value for the companies thatthey they run.
Adam Larson (15:54):
Yeah. Well, we've seen that that trend, especially
in the CF. The role of CFO isconstantly changing and it's
evolving even more that thatbusiness partner, that person
with the seat at the table who'snot just coming with a bunch of
spreadsheet was what wasactually coming with no
information. And it's it's superimportant. How have you been
able, as a CFO, been able tohelp your team and guide your
(16:15):
team with all these constantchanges, especially within
technology?
Bill Koefoed (16:19):
You know, you have to you really have to embrace it
and you have to you know, I'm aI'm a I love to ski and I'm very
much of an advocate of like, ifyou don't fall down, you're not
trying hard enough. You're notreally trying to improve. You
know, you're not trying toimprove. Like I can go through a
whole day and not fall, but thenI do try I try not to fall. But
(16:41):
you have to push yourcapabilities.
I think as a financeorganization, it's one of these
funny organizations that youhave to be right. I mean, the
numbers have to be right. Theyhave to be right when you report
them to Wall Street. But theprocess of getting to right
doesn't always have to be rightin every part of the journey.
And you have to be willing totry new things and you have to
(17:02):
be willing to explore.
We ended up, we use Microsoft asour tech platform for one
stream. You know, I take all myMicrosoft data and I take all my
revenue data, and we've createdthis process to create gross
margin by customer, but wedidn't get it right the first
(17:22):
time. A variety of differentreasons on why we didn't do it,
but you just got to keep tryingand you got to reward people for
innovation and for trying. Andat the end of the day, the
numbers do need to be right. Butthe process of getting more
insight and making you smarterand better and more strategic, I
(17:44):
think is a really important one.
And I think it's a culture that,know, as a CFO, you really have
to perpetuate. That's how youcreate great teams. That's how
the teams perform. That's howthey accelerate. And, you know,
at at the end of the day,hopefully, I'm I'm also a big
(18:05):
believer that that work shouldbe fun.
And I I try to make it that way.
Adam Larson (18:12):
Well, I like what you said, you know, the first
time you didn't get it right.And I think a lot of times,
especially in the financefunction, you don't want to not
get things right because if youget something wrong, like let's
say you miss a zero, that zerocould have huge consequences. So
how do you create the space tomaybe not get it right the first
time, but also, you know, hey,we want to get the numbers
correct as well?
Bill Koefoed (18:32):
You know, you really have to create a learning
culture. Mhmm. So I I think oneof our one of our board members
is is General Petraeus who ran,you know, both, I think both the
Iraq and Afghan war. He was thefour star general that was in
charge. He he makes it's it'sfun being in board meetings with
(18:54):
them, because he's got a lot ofhe's got a lot of really
interesting phrases, but one ofthem is like team who learns the
fastest wins, because you don'talways go into a situation
knowing the answer, or even theanswer that you think you know
when you start may change, butyou have to learn and you have
to learn the fastest.
(19:15):
And I was really lucky. I workedfor Microsoft for ten years and
I think that was part of theirculture was fail fast and, you
know, and learn from it and anditerate. And I think as a CFO,
you have to, you know, you haveto do that because we have to
learn. We have to get smarter.And the more strategic you are,
you've gotta you've gotta reallyembrace that.
Adam Larson (19:38):
Yeah. You really do. And I like that I like that
mindset, and I think it could gofar for especially for keeping
high performing talent becauseyou don't want people to come in
and just kinda get bored or getoverwhelmed by all the work that
they have on them. You want themto excel and to be innovative.
Bill Koefoed (19:51):
For sure. You know, I also if my team's
listening to your podcast,they're good to probably start
laughing. But, you know,sometimes, you know, when we
finish our monthly report, youknow, I just kind of, riff on
whatever's kind of top of mindso that you can I want everybody
in my team, I want everybody inmy organization to know what
(20:14):
problems I'm trying to solve,what are the things that I'm
worried about, Because if youdon't do that, then you can't
like People can't help you ifthey don't know what your
problems you're trying to solve?And so it's really been a fun
part, at least fun for me, funpart of the team to know, to
kind of bring everybody alongand make sure that everybody's
(20:35):
all, you know, all knows atleast what's top of my mind. I
want to know what's top of theirmind as well.
Certainly they're not always ascommunicative as I would hope. I
do reach out and try to listen.Sometimes And that's better just
one on one that isn't like groupsetting.
Adam Larson (20:50):
No, I appreciate that. I appreciate that
perspective and, you know, Ihope that, you know, I hope that
they're enjoying it as much asyou are, you know, because a lot
of times it's reflected in theleadership what, you know,
what's happening with theemployees as well.
Bill Koefoed (21:02):
You'll get a bunch of comments on your podcast from
my team.
Adam Larson (21:05):
So, you know, just bringing the conversation back
around, we we've been talking alot about a lot of different
things, especially when it comesto A. I. Within the finance
function. You know, are thereare there different trends or
technologies or something thatyou kind of find exciting?
You're like, hey, I can't waitfor this to happen.
This is going to be really cool,especially, you know, when I
implement my team or weimplement as an organization.
Bill Koefoed (21:23):
You know, I do think that as, you know, we
talked a little bit aboutearlier about some of the kind
of strengths and opportunitiesaround the LLM models. I do
think that they're going tocontinue to get better. I don't
think, actually, I know thatthey're going to continue to get
better. Of course. And I dothink, back to the example that
I gave of, I'd love to look atthe truck.
(21:43):
Mean, every CFO would love toget more insight into, hey. If I
do this, what happens? Or I didthat, and what happened? Or are
there some trends that I can seethat I can replicate or things
that I that I did that I don'twant to do again. And I think
that the AI is just going toallow you to do that analysis
(22:04):
that much faster.
Back to my earlier point abouthe or she who learns fastest
wins. I think that AI is gonnareally help you learn better and
faster, and it'll by definition,I think the AI is gonna get
gonna learn and and, you know,help to provide some
recommendations or somesuggestions. If I could ask and
(22:24):
say like, Hey, if I spent amillion dollars more marketing
in Europe, how much revenuewould that lead to? That would
be great. I mean, we can go tryto attempt that analysis, but
just the more you're better andsmarter, I think that'll be I
think it'll be an interestingphenomenon.
Adam Larson (22:46):
Yeah. It will be interesting, especially when it
comes to things like forecastingwhere you're like, hey, I wanna
look at the forecast, but youcan ask the model saying, hey,
compared to the last twentyyears of data, what is our next
six months going look like?It'll probably be much more
accurate than what we'reguessing based on, you know,
everything in our heads.
Bill Koefoed (23:01):
Well, and even beyond that, how can I change
the forecast? Right?
Adam Larson (23:05):
What Yeah.
Bill Koefoed (23:05):
What are the levers that I can, that I can
turn to change the forecast if Ihire more salespeople or if I
spend more money on marketingor, you know, I do I spend it in
France versus Mexico. All theall those things are are what a
CFO's thinking about every day.
Adam Larson (23:25):
Yeah.
Bill Koefoed (23:26):
In terms of, like, not just what it what is the
kind of forecast, but, like, howcan I change it? How can I
influence it? I think that'sgonna be really exciting.
Adam Larson (23:34):
Do you think we're gonna see, investors kind of
looking for, you know, new IPOsor even people that are
investing in and saying, hey.How are you using AI? Is gonna
be a question that's gonna startbeing asked, do think?
Bill Koefoed (23:46):
I mean, we we were certainly I mean, we have an AI
product, so we were certainly,asked about it. And, you know,
the question is always like,like, how are you using it in
your own environment?
Adam Larson (23:56):
Yeah.
Bill Koefoed (23:57):
Because, of course, you know, they they
wanna make sure that you'redrinking your own champagne or
eating your own dog food,whatever term you want to use
around that. So I do thinkthat's right. Think investors
always want to know kind of whatyour product vision is. I to
(24:18):
some degree, are you using AI toaccelerate your product vision,
I think would be something thatthey would clearly be looking
at. I think also on theefficiency side, I think that
that they, you know, that theywanna know that they're asking
it.
It's usually it's usually nottheir first question, but it
certainly can come up in the,you know, kinda call it top
(24:38):
five.
Adam Larson (24:40):
Yeah. Bill, I just I really appreciate your
insight. You're coming on thepodcast, sharing all this
information, and having thisconversation because it's an
ever changing product. I thinkif we have this conversation six
months from now, it'll becompletely different. And I
think that's the exciting thingabout new technology is you can
kind of watch it and kind ofobserve it and see because it's
been around long enough thatpeople are starting to add it to
their software's and add it totheir things that people already
(25:02):
have access to.
So it'll be interesting to seethe landscape change as people
start to understand how to useit more efficiently.
Bill Koefoed (25:09):
Look, I think we're in a really fun time for
technology companies. It waswas, one of my prior jobs, I was
speaking to a group oftechnology investors, I said,
you know, it must be horrifyingto be an investor because
literally companies that existedin, you know, twenty five years
ago don't exist today, becausethey've been acquired or they've
(25:31):
been, you know, they don't existfor a variety of different
reasons. But it's a really funindustry to work in because it's
so dynamic. There's so manychanging things. And you got to
read the newspaper, readdifferent articles online, and
you learn a lot.
I I do think that it'senergizing as a, you know, as an
(25:52):
employee in in the technologyindustry as I've been for most
of my career.
Adam Larson (25:56):
Again, I just wanna thank you so much for coming on
the podcast, Bill. It's beengreat to have you on here.
Bill Koefoed (26:00):
Thank you.
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heard and you'd like to becounted in for more relevant
accounting and financeeducation, visit IMA's website
@www.IMAnet.org.
Welcome back to Count Me In. I'm your host, Adam
Larson, and today I'm excited tobe joined by Bill Koefoed, Chief
Financial Officer at OneStream.We're digging into the rapidly
evolving world of AI andfinance, especially how it's
revolutionizing financialforecasting and reshaping what
it means to work in accountingand finance today. Bill shares
his perspective on earlyadoption of AI, why transparency
matters, and how these tools canactually make finance roles more
(00:43):
engaging and strategic. We alsotouch on the essential skills
the next generation of financeprofessionals will need and how
leaders can foster a culture ofinnovation.
Let's get started. Well, Bill,we're very excited to have you
on the podcast today as we'regoing be talking about AI and
(01:04):
financial forecasting. And Ifigured a good place for for us
to start would be how is AIcurrently being leveraged in
finance, in stuff like demandforecasting?
Bill Koefoed (01:14):
Yeah, I mean, demand forecasting is a great
use case for particularly formachine learning, the more
quantitative aspects of AI. Youknow, in today's uncertain
world, people need moreinformation. They need to be
able to do more scenarioplanning. And in Canada, the
stakes are as high as it's everbeen, because if you miss a
(01:34):
forecast, either too high or toolow, you know, it's real money.
And we found a number of ourcustomers have been receiving
better forecasts, and they'vebeen doing it in substantially
less time leveraging AI.
And and that's really a greatopportunity, and and I think
we're just at the early stagesof that.
Adam Larson (01:54):
So we're, you know, we're at the early stages at it,
and and do you think that it'llbe prohibitive of people
adopting it? Because, you know,sometimes when something's in an
early stage, especially of atechnology, they're not so keen
on trusting it, especiallysomething like an artificial
intelligence or like, you know,should I put all my eggs in one
basket kind of thing?
Bill Koefoed (02:11):
Yeah. I mean, I'd say two things about that. One
is there's a lot of hype aroundAI right now generally. And I
think that there's been someimportant use cases there. You
know, I mentioned one obviouslyusing things like generative AI
for helping developers do abetter job in terms of writing
(02:32):
code has been a pretty good ROIassociated with it.
And clearly, call centers havealso been, I think that path is
well worn, and certainly it iswithin our company. But I that
it, I think to your point, kindof begs the question of like,
how transparent are you in theAI, you know, inputs and
(02:54):
outputs? It's one of the thingsthat we've really focused on is
rather than just having a blackbox like some companies have,
which really scares datascientists because they can't
trust. You press a button andout comes a number and you're
like, I don't know how that cameabout. We really exposed the
inputs and the outputs.
(03:16):
And for us, we basically runthis concept of a model arena
where we let different modelskind of compete against each
other such that you get the bestanswer. And that could change
obviously over time. But we giveall that transparency to our
customers, and they want that.If you don't have that
transparency to your point,you're going to really struggle
(03:36):
to get adoption of your AIcapabilities.
Adam Larson (03:41):
So what are some other examples of, you know, how
AI has kind of made asignificant impact? You know,
things like maybe likeallocation of resources with an
organization or other elementsthat you've seen?
Bill Koefoed (03:51):
Well, I mean, mentioned a couple obviously
with our developers and and withwith contact centers. I mean, I
think you're going to see iteven more broadly utilized as I
think people get morecomfortable with use cases.
There's another dynamic,obviously, is that you don't
want proprietary informationkind of domain. The And so
(04:13):
making sure that you've got, youknow, like OneStream is a book
of record for most of ourcustomers, if not all of them,
and you don't want, this is theinformation that's going to Wall
Street. So you don't want thatobviously out in the public
domain.
So how do you actually take inLLM models, use them within your
environment and then be able tolook at, as a finance person,
(04:36):
today, I'd love to look atrevenue by geography, how much
marketing spend I've given, andI want to do it by period. I can
go do that today, but I'm goingto have to have some analysts
that are basically kind ofwrangling and untangling data to
figure that out. Whereas, youknow, this is going to be a
(04:57):
perfect use case of saying like,Hey, I just want my AI agent to
be able to tell me that, and Iwant to be able to do that in a
fast time. The other thing isobviously, I think we're all
looking at whether the data isactually accurate. And I think
that's going to improve overtime.
And so I think there's to someinteresting use cases. I get
asked sometimes, you know, how'sit going to impact finance
(05:21):
employment as an example. And Ithink it's actually going to
really supercharge finance. Some22 year old that's graduating
from college doesn't want tospend all their time just
sifting through data, putting itin the spreadsheet. They want to
use their brain.
And this is going to give them alot more of an opportunity to
get all the information thatthey need to be able to make
better decisions. And I thinkthat's going to actually be
(05:41):
really exciting for the kind ofaccounting and finance
profession.
Adam Larson (05:46):
Well, yeah, especially as, you know, when
when, you know, twenty years agowhen somebody's coming out of
college going into the financeprofession, a lot of things that
those people were doing arehandled by things like AI now.
So it's going to change thelandscape of accounting
education.
Bill Koefoed (06:00):
Well, for sure. And I think part of the issue
that faces the profession todayis that there's less people
going into the professionbecause they don't want to, you
know, you can decide, want to gointo accounting, or I want to go
into investment banking, or Iwant to go into law or some
other profession. And I thinkpart of that was just because
they felt in the accountingprofession that they weren't,
(06:21):
you know, that it was just abunch of, you know, number
crunching, shall we say. WhereasI think this is going to give
them an ability to have a muchmore enriching job and one where
they can add a lot more valuethe company that they work for.
And hopefully that'll turn thetide a little bit in terms of
more people going into theprofession, but certainly it's a
(06:42):
challenge that we've been facinghere over the last few years.
Adam Larson (06:46):
So for people who are in the profession, you know,
how can what how can theyupscale to to be at the cutting
edge? Because, you know,obviously what we were doing
before isn't going to work. Youknow, what we're doing in the
future, technology is constantlychanging and they don't want to
fall behind.
Bill Koefoed (06:59):
Yeah, it's a great question. I think that, you
know, being, you know, having aninsatiable curiosity and really
embracing AI rather than beingkind of nervous about it, I
think would be the advice that Iwould have. Go learn more about
it. Try it. Go on something likeChatGPT and try different
(07:23):
solutions and questions and justget more familiar with how it
works.
Because there are some nuancesin how you ask the question and
what kind of data you provideall that. Clearly there's
application. Ended up using Thefirst time I used it, I used it
for writing a job descriptionfor a new hire that I was doing.
(07:43):
But, you know, the more you getmore comfortable with it, you
know, Microsoft obviously hasCopilot that they make pretty
easily available and use it andtry it and explore. As you do
more, then you'll get morecomfortable with it and you'll
get better at it.
Adam Larson (07:56):
So you mentioned, you know, you've been using it
in your daily life to help withthings like writing job
descriptions. I know people helpwith their emails. You know, are
there other ways that you'veseen, especially people within
the finance and accountingfunction, utilize it for day to
day tasks, maybe even help justmake their jobs more efficient?
Bill Koefoed (08:14):
Yeah. Well, certainly, it kind of borders
between kind of legal andfinance, but being able to go
look in contracts for specificamount, for specific amounts and
or information, if you can putthose all into your LLM models,
it'll help give you moreinsights. You can certainly do
(08:37):
the similar process and look attrends that you have around
pricing and or packaging and ordemand. I mean, there's so many
opportunities for finance peopleto be able to use it just to get
more insights into theircustomer trends. In addition to
that, things like accountreconciliation and transaction
matching are clearly anopportunity to better utilize,
(09:02):
again, a little bit more on thequantitative side, to be able to
use AI and, and again, maketheir jobs more efficient, more
effective, more useful.
The list goes on and I probablyhaven't even contemplated other
opportunities for how people areusing them, but it's a really
exciting time. And, you know, asI said, I think it's going to be
(09:25):
enriching for the profession.
Adam Larson (09:27):
Now, I wanted to touch on something you mentioned
earlier about, transparency. Youwere saying how you guys make
sure you're transparent and openwith how the AI is being used
and the assessment there. Howimportant is it for
organizations to have their ownpolicies around AI, especially,
you know, with organizations youwork with?
Bill Koefoed (09:43):
I think it's really important, again,
particularly, I mean, yourfinancial information is kind of
the keys to your kingdom, right?I mean, it's the most
proprietary, or one of the mostproprietary assets that you
have, especially if you're apublic company. And so, you
know, we obviously take securityvery seriously. And so I think
(10:04):
it's, I think it's reallyimportant that as you start
thinking about, you know, your,your, the AI tools that you want
to use, you do it in the contextof your security environment and
make sure that it's consistentwith that, environment and that
you're protecting yourinformation.
Adam Larson (10:21):
Yeah, definitely. Because it's it's one of those
things where anybody with aconnection to an Internet can
access an AI application. Andwhat are you putting into that?
What does that AI applicationhave access to, you know, and
how are you utilizing it? And Isuppose that's why a lot of
folks when they're working with,software, you know, different
softwares that they're workingwith, a lot of times those
(10:41):
softwares have included somesort of an LLM within their
platform to help, you know,utilize the functionality just
within a safe environment.
Bill Koefoed (10:50):
No, I think that's right. Mean, and I think, you
know, whether it's us orServiceNow or some of the other,
you know, big softwarecompanies, I think you're seeing
that trend pretty consistentlyapplied that you're using AI
within the context of thesoftware provider.
Adam Larson (11:07):
Have you guys run into any, like, around the
conversations around, you know,ethics within the AI platforms?
You know, it's different typesof biases that can get
introduced when when looking atdifferent number forms. How have
you guys addressed those kind ofproblems?
Bill Koefoed (11:21):
Yeah, we've been a little bit more oriented on
quantitative AI than some ofthose issues, shall we say. And
certainly on the LLM side, Ithink they exist a little bit
more. But I think, you know, oursweet spot, given that we are a
financial software company andparticularly around numbers, you
know, again, there clearly canbe errors if if, you know, we we
(11:46):
tend to be more focused on thequantitative side. Okay.
Adam Larson (11:50):
Now, how important is it to have the human side of
an A. I? You know, you have theA. I, but a lot of times people
say you also need the H. Thehuman intelligence, to to kind
of come together.
You know, how have you as anorganization been able to, you
know, utilize the human side tomake sure that the A. I. Is
doing what it needs to do? Andthen also, you know, because,
you know, we want to trust thenumbers that are coming out. But
(12:11):
obviously at some point,somebody has to check things to
make sure things are still onthe right track.
Bill Koefoed (12:15):
Well, I mentioned a couple of these things
previously. I mean, I thinktransparency really matters so
that you can get people to trustyour data. Again, to the extent
that it's it's accessing andfinding data and being able to
expose that data to humans, Ithink, again, that saves people
a ton of time. I mean, justusing, you know, on the
(12:38):
developer side, you know, wehave a lot of developers that
are using it on the LLM side. Iknow I'm going back and forth a
little bit between AI and ML,but on the developer side, like
they love it.
It makes them more productive.They have to spend less time
writing code and they canleverage code that's been done
before. I think it gets a littlebit back to my earlier comment
(13:01):
about just trust and we love theword supercharging, but I think
at least in today's world, Ithink AI has a really great
opportunity to help superchargehumans. And I think that, like I
said earlier, I think that'llenrich people's work, their
lives, and again, theproductivity of the people that
(13:22):
are leveraging it.
Adam Larson (13:24):
Do you think that as we look at how AI is being
interspersed within, you know,especially the finance and
accounting community, do youthink that the lack that the the
lack of people coming into it,less people are coming into
those jobs? Do you think thefact that AI is helping will
take in it will take account forthat for that less people coming
into the industry?
Bill Koefoed (13:45):
Well, certainly it will make people more
productive. And so I think thatwill be quite a good benefit or
positive benefit. I also thinkthat, again, to the extent that
it makes people's jobs moreenriching, I think you could
find more people entering theprofession and you could see
that trend ticking up, you know,from where it's been. I mean,
(14:06):
from the days when I graduatedfrom college, I started my
career in public accounting. Youknow, I reference, sometimes
investors ask me like, you know,why is consolidation hard?
And back when I used to do it, Iused to have this, you know,
yellow paper and you used tohave a column, which is entity
A, and then you'd have a columnthat's entity B, and you had to
(14:27):
eliminate all the transactionsbetween A and B, and you had to
do it all on yellow paper. I hadthis, for big companies, I had
this yellow paper all tapedtogether, but in today's world,
don't have to do that. And soagain, can leverage your brain
more and you can be moreimpactful in the work that
(14:48):
you've done. We did a studycalled Finance 2035 that we
released, I don't know, four orfive months ago. One of the
things that we found is that,particularly for public
companies, that people expectthe CFO and his or her
organization to be morestrategic over the next decade.
Now, the role of the CFO being abackward looking reporter of
(15:14):
information, those days areover. You're seeing the CFO role
helping a CEO look aroundcorners, and the data that we
found from our Finance 2035study really showcased that,
that this is something that CEOsare expecting from CFOs, that
investors are expecting fromCFOs, that, you know, owners are
(15:36):
expecting from CFOs, and I thinkthat AI just really helps
accelerate that trend because,you know, the CFO is really an
important role and can help, youknow, really impact shareholder
value for the companies thatthey they run.
Adam Larson (15:54):
Yeah. Well, we've seen that that trend, especially
in the CF. The role of CFO isconstantly changing and it's
evolving even more that thatbusiness partner, that person
with the seat at the table who'snot just coming with a bunch of
spreadsheet was what wasactually coming with no
information. And it's it's superimportant. How have you been
able, as a CFO, been able tohelp your team and guide your
(16:15):
team with all these constantchanges, especially within
technology?
Bill Koefoed (16:19):
You know, you have to you really have to embrace it
and you have to you know, I'm aI'm a I love to ski and I'm very
much of an advocate of like, ifyou don't fall down, you're not
trying hard enough. You're notreally trying to improve. You
know, you're not trying toimprove. Like I can go through a
whole day and not fall, but thenI do try I try not to fall. But
(16:41):
you have to push yourcapabilities.
I think as a financeorganization, it's one of these
funny organizations that youhave to be right. I mean, the
numbers have to be right. Theyhave to be right when you report
them to Wall Street. But theprocess of getting to right
doesn't always have to be rightin every part of the journey.
And you have to be willing totry new things and you have to
(17:02):
be willing to explore.
We ended up, we use Microsoft asour tech platform for one
stream. You know, I take all myMicrosoft data and I take all my
revenue data, and we've createdthis process to create gross
margin by customer, but wedidn't get it right the first
(17:22):
time. A variety of differentreasons on why we didn't do it,
but you just got to keep tryingand you got to reward people for
innovation and for trying. Andat the end of the day, the
numbers do need to be right. Butthe process of getting more
insight and making you smarterand better and more strategic, I
(17:44):
think is a really important one.
And I think it's a culture that,know, as a CFO, you really have
to perpetuate. That's how youcreate great teams. That's how
the teams perform. That's howthey accelerate. And, you know,
at at the end of the day,hopefully, I'm I'm also a big
(18:05):
believer that that work shouldbe fun.
And I I try to make it that way.
Adam Larson (18:12):
Well, I like what you said, you know, the first
time you didn't get it right.And I think a lot of times,
especially in the financefunction, you don't want to not
get things right because if youget something wrong, like let's
say you miss a zero, that zerocould have huge consequences. So
how do you create the space tomaybe not get it right the first
time, but also, you know, hey,we want to get the numbers
correct as well?
Bill Koefoed (18:32):
You know, you really have to create a learning
culture. Mhmm. So I I think oneof our one of our board members
is is General Petraeus who ran,you know, both, I think both the
Iraq and Afghan war. He was thefour star general that was in
charge. He he makes it's it'sfun being in board meetings with
(18:54):
them, because he's got a lot ofhe's got a lot of really
interesting phrases, but one ofthem is like team who learns the
fastest wins, because you don'talways go into a situation
knowing the answer, or even theanswer that you think you know
when you start may change, butyou have to learn and you have
to learn the fastest.
(19:15):
And I was really lucky. I workedfor Microsoft for ten years and
I think that was part of theirculture was fail fast and, you
know, and learn from it and anditerate. And I think as a CFO,
you have to, you know, you haveto do that because we have to
learn. We have to get smarter.And the more strategic you are,
you've gotta you've gotta reallyembrace that.
Adam Larson (19:38):
Yeah. You really do. And I like that I like that
mindset, and I think it could gofar for especially for keeping
high performing talent becauseyou don't want people to come in
and just kinda get bored or getoverwhelmed by all the work that
they have on them. You want themto excel and to be innovative.
Bill Koefoed (19:51):
For sure. You know, I also if my team's
listening to your podcast,they're good to probably start
laughing. But, you know,sometimes, you know, when we
finish our monthly report, youknow, I just kind of, riff on
whatever's kind of top of mindso that you can I want everybody
in my team, I want everybody inmy organization to know what
(20:14):
problems I'm trying to solve,what are the things that I'm
worried about, Because if youdon't do that, then you can't
like People can't help you ifthey don't know what your
problems you're trying to solve?And so it's really been a fun
part, at least fun for me, funpart of the team to know, to
kind of bring everybody alongand make sure that everybody's
(20:35):
all, you know, all knows atleast what's top of my mind. I
want to know what's top of theirmind as well.
Certainly they're not always ascommunicative as I would hope. I
do reach out and try to listen.Sometimes And that's better just
one on one that isn't like groupsetting.
Adam Larson (20:50):
No, I appreciate that. I appreciate that
perspective and, you know, Ihope that, you know, I hope that
they're enjoying it as much asyou are, you know, because a lot
of times it's reflected in theleadership what, you know,
what's happening with theemployees as well.
Bill Koefoed (21:02):
You'll get a bunch of comments on your podcast from
my team.
Adam Larson (21:05):
So, you know, just bringing the conversation back
around, we we've been talking alot about a lot of different
things, especially when it comesto A. I. Within the finance
function. You know, are thereare there different trends or
technologies or something thatyou kind of find exciting?
You're like, hey, I can't waitfor this to happen.
This is going to be really cool,especially, you know, when I
implement my team or weimplement as an organization.
Bill Koefoed (21:23):
You know, I do think that as, you know, we
talked a little bit aboutearlier about some of the kind
of strengths and opportunitiesaround the LLM models. I do
think that they're going tocontinue to get better. I don't
think, actually, I know thatthey're going to continue to get
better. Of course. And I dothink, back to the example that
I gave of, I'd love to look atthe truck.
(21:43):
Mean, every CFO would love toget more insight into, hey. If I
do this, what happens? Or I didthat, and what happened? Or are
there some trends that I can seethat I can replicate or things
that I that I did that I don'twant to do again. And I think
that the AI is just going toallow you to do that analysis
(22:04):
that much faster.
Back to my earlier point abouthe or she who learns fastest
wins. I think that AI is gonnareally help you learn better and
faster, and it'll by definition,I think the AI is gonna get
gonna learn and and, you know,help to provide some
recommendations or somesuggestions. If I could ask and
(22:24):
say like, Hey, if I spent amillion dollars more marketing
in Europe, how much revenuewould that lead to? That would
be great. I mean, we can go tryto attempt that analysis, but
just the more you're better andsmarter, I think that'll be I
think it'll be an interestingphenomenon.
Adam Larson (22:46):
Yeah. It will be interesting, especially when it
comes to things like forecastingwhere you're like, hey, I wanna
look at the forecast, but youcan ask the model saying, hey,
compared to the last twentyyears of data, what is our next
six months going look like?It'll probably be much more
accurate than what we'reguessing based on, you know,
everything in our heads.
Bill Koefoed (23:01):
Well, and even beyond that, how can I change
the forecast? Right?
Adam Larson (23:05):
What Yeah.
Bill Koefoed (23:05):
What are the levers that I can, that I can
turn to change the forecast if Ihire more salespeople or if I
spend more money on marketingor, you know, I do I spend it in
France versus Mexico. All theall those things are are what a
CFO's thinking about every day.
Adam Larson (23:25):
Yeah.
Bill Koefoed (23:26):
In terms of, like, not just what it what is the
kind of forecast, but, like, howcan I change it? How can I
influence it? I think that'sgonna be really exciting.
Adam Larson (23:34):
Do you think we're gonna see, investors kind of
looking for, you know, new IPOsor even people that are
investing in and saying, hey.How are you using AI? Is gonna
be a question that's gonna startbeing asked, do think?
Bill Koefoed (23:46):
I mean, we we were certainly I mean, we have an AI
product, so we were certainly,asked about it. And, you know,
the question is always like,like, how are you using it in
your own environment?
Adam Larson (23:56):
Yeah.
Bill Koefoed (23:57):
Because, of course, you know, they they
wanna make sure that you'redrinking your own champagne or
eating your own dog food,whatever term you want to use
around that. So I do thinkthat's right. Think investors
always want to know kind of whatyour product vision is. I to
(24:18):
some degree, are you using AI toaccelerate your product vision,
I think would be something thatthey would clearly be looking
at. I think also on theefficiency side, I think that
that they, you know, that theywanna know that they're asking
it.
It's usually it's usually nottheir first question, but it
certainly can come up in the,you know, kinda call it top
(24:38):
five.
Adam Larson (24:40):
Yeah. Bill, I just I really appreciate your
insight. You're coming on thepodcast, sharing all this
information, and having thisconversation because it's an
ever changing product. I thinkif we have this conversation six
months from now, it'll becompletely different. And I
think that's the exciting thingabout new technology is you can
kind of watch it and kind ofobserve it and see because it's
been around long enough thatpeople are starting to add it to
their software's and add it totheir things that people already
(25:02):
have access to.
So it'll be interesting to seethe landscape change as people
start to understand how to useit more efficiently.
Bill Koefoed (25:09):
Look, I think we're in a really fun time for
technology companies. It waswas, one of my prior jobs, I was
speaking to a group oftechnology investors, I said,
you know, it must be horrifyingto be an investor because
literally companies that existedin, you know, twenty five years
ago don't exist today, becausethey've been acquired or they've
(25:31):
been, you know, they don't existfor a variety of different
reasons. But it's a really funindustry to work in because it's
so dynamic. There's so manychanging things. And you got to
read the newspaper, readdifferent articles online, and
you learn a lot.
I I do think that it'senergizing as a, you know, as an
(25:52):
employee in in the technologyindustry as I've been for most
of my career.
Adam Larson (25:56):
Again, I just wanna thank you so much for coming on
the podcast, Bill. It's beengreat to have you on here.
Bill Koefoed (26:00):
Thank you.
Announcer (26:03):
This has been Count Me In, IMA's podcast, providing
you with latest perspectives ofthought leaders from the
accounting and financeprofession. If you like what you
heard and you'd like to becounted in for more relevant
accounting and financeeducation, visit IMA's website
@www.IMAnet.org.
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I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!