Paul Barnhurst argues that AI isn't the answer for everything. Monthly Excel processes work better with Power Query. Claude and Copilot often overpromise, and FP&A still needs humans for business partnering and dynamic assumptions.
AI isn't the solution for everything. I was doing a webinar on Excel and someone asked, well, could I just do this monthly process that I do every month with AI? And I said, why? It's an easy solution with Power Query. You know, 1 1 always equals 2. You're not gonna get any variability. Why wouldn't you just build it as a proper automated process versus sending it to AI? Not to say AI can't help, but so often, shouldn't I just use AI for that? I don't care what technology you use. And really your boss doesn't at the end of the day. Yes, everybody wants to show AI returns, But you make such a great point. It's about the right tool for the right job, and we're all trying to figure that out. And it's going to vary depending on how clean your data is and how structured your processes are. It's not a simple, in every situation you use AI for this. It's going to vary.
I sort of concur with all of you. And apparently when co-work came in from Claude and Copilot, the impression was that it'll come into your computers and it'll start reading the files and they'll be able to sort of solve everything. I think one very important element which we all forget is There is a human element in all our roles, especially the FP&A role. You have a concept of business partnering where you are engaging with operation teams, you're engaging with human resource teams because your budgets and your forecasts are like a living organism because assumptions are changing on a regular basis.
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