I run a lean operation as GrowCFO's CEO and CFO.
I run a lean operation as GrowCFO's CEO and CFO.
Some great people, a clear strategy, and five AI tools I use almost every single day.
Here's how I use each one:
ChatGPT (GPT-5.2)
1. Drafting board-ready summaries from messy financial data — GPT-5.2 is specifically optimised for spreadsheet formatting and financial modelling 2. 2. Researching markets and benchmarking competitors fast using Deep Research, which browses hundreds of sources and produces fully cited reports.
3. Brainstorming pricing strategy and revenue model scenarios — Projects now lets me save outputs as a reusable knowledge base.
Claude (Sonnet 4.6)
1. Building detailed financial forecast models directly in Excel (Claude in Excel now connects live to data providers like S&P Global, PitchBook, and FactSet via MCP, without leaving the spreadsheet).
2. Reviewing contracts and flagging commercial risk in plain English — Sonnet 4.6 leads on the Finance Agent benchmark and matches Opus on complex document comprehension.
3. Analysing customer and revenue data to spot trends before they bite — the 1 million token context window means I can feed it entire datasets in a single pass.
Google Gemini (Gemini 3.1 Pro):
1. Searching across Google Drive to surface documents instantly — the Gemini side panel works across Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Gmail in one place.
2. Summarising long email threads so I can respond in minutes, not hours — Gemini now grounds Copilot-style directly in the open email you're reading.
3. Turning rough notes into polished proposals and pitch decks — Gemini 3.1 Pro brings significantly improved reasoning for complex, multi-step tasks.
Microsoft Copilot (powered by GPT-5.2):
1. Converting meeting transcripts into action logs inside Teams — Voice Catch-Up in Outlook now does this hands-free on mobile
2. Automating repetitive Excel reporting tasks I used to do manually — Agent Mode in Excel actively edits and refines spreadsheets through multiple steps, reasoning through changes as it works.
3. Rewriting dense financial narratives into exec-friendly language — the new Thinking Mode selector lets me tune Copilot for speed, creativity, or precision depending on the task
Google NotebookLM (now under Google AI Pro):
1. Creating my monthly CFO report as presentation slides to walk through with our leadership team — I feed it the numbers and notes, it builds the Slide Deck using Gemini 3 and Nano Banana Pro, structured and presentation-ready
2. Turning recorded interviews into structured research notes — Deep Research mode can now actively scour the web to build citation-backed briefing documents from scratch
3. Building a private knowledge base from GrowCFO's internal frameworks — notebooks now feed directly into the Gemini app, so my knowledge base is live across every tool I use.
AI isn't replacing my thinking.
It's making me faster, sharper and focused on the most crucial decisions.
Do you agree with the CFO tools I use for each task?