Good morning. The confidence of CFO regarding the prospects of their own companies is improving, but their attitude towards the market and the broader economy has become more cautious. At the same time, the technologies they are eager to deploy are also raising increasing concerns.

Deloitte's third-quarter CFO Signals survey for 2026 interviewed 200 financial executives from North American companies with an annual revenue of at least $1 billion. The survey shows that the CFO confidence index has risen from 5.9 in the previous quarter to 6.1, returning to the “high” range.

90% of respondents indicated that they are more optimistic about the financial prospects of their companies; at the same time, their risk appetite has slightly cooled down, with 53% believing that now is a good time to take on greater risks, which is lower than the 59% in the second quarter. However, Ed Hardy, the head of Deloitte's financial services business in the United States, pointed out that there has been little change in CFO's views on the relative attractiveness of debt financing and equity financing.

Hardy believes that what is more notable is the clear disparity in views between CFO regarding their own businesses and the overall market. The proportion of those who believe the U.S. stock market is overvalued has risen significantly to 83%, compared to 49% in the second quarter. Nevertheless, the attractiveness of equity financing remained unchanged in the third quarter, while the attractiveness of debt financing increased by 4 percentage points.

Hardy said to me, "If they think the valuation is too high, buying may not be the most objective choice." He added that the inflated valuation is prompting the financial officer to "seek the highest use for the capital," and he linked this development with the increase in investments by AI.

AI and technology are also becoming fields where opportunities and risks coexist. The deployment of technologies, including generative AI, is one of the main internal concerns for CFO; while cybersecurity ranks first among external risks with a 50% proportion. Hardy indicates that these two are closely related. He said, " AI may further exacerbate your already high concerns about cybersecurity." He mentioned that the use of open platforms and third-party models is on the rise.

At the same time, CFO's outlook for North America's economy over the next 12 months has slightly declined, but overall it remains stable compared to the second quarter. Inflation, supply chain disruptions, and the economy itself are among their main external concerns, second only to cybersecurity.

The data collection for this survey began on August 24th and ended on September 8th, prior to the Federal Reserve's interest rate decision on September 16th. Therefore, it remains to be seen how sentiment will change in the next quarter. Hardy said, "You always wonder whether that has already been taken into account in their judgment of market trends." He added that he will closely monitor whether economic and geopolitical uncertainties will ease around 2027.

Looking ahead to 2027, Hardy indicates that he expects CFO to continue to drive AI "from the experimental stage to a truly solid application." At the same time, there will also be challenges to address governance issues, constantly changing tokenization pricing models, and how to measure real returns. He said, "The role of CFO is increasingly becoming that of a coordinator within companies." As the finance department takes on broader supervision over the costs and outcomes of AI, this role is also expanding.

Sheryl Estrada

Sheryl.Estrada @ fortune.com

Leaderboard

Gunnison Copper Corp announced that Jennifer Hays will take on the role of CFO at the company starting from October 12th. This mining company is known for its flagship project Gunnison Copper Project and its location in Arizona, Johnson Camp Mine. She will succeed Fabio Rocha, who previously served as a temporary CFO and will be promoted to Senior Director of Accounting and Reporting. Hays has approximately 20 years of financial experience, covering the U.S. defense industry base and government contracting sectors. She most recently held the position of CFO at PacSci EMC, a defense and aerospace company under Ralliant Corp. Prior to that, Hays worked at Intel for about 17 years, holding several senior financial positions.

Ivica Maric will replace Yves M and ller to assume the role of CFO and Chief Operating Officer of Hugo Boss AG. Mü ller has left the management committee for personal reasons and will step down as requested on October 1st. He has held the position of CFO since December 2017 and was granted the title of COO in May 2022, during which time he helped lead the company's CLAIM growth strategy. Maric has been working at Hugo Boss since 2005 and most recently served as the Executive Vice President of Business Operations; he will take over these two positions after Mü ller departs.

Big Deal

A new survey conducted by Gallup and Microsoft in 37 countries found that in 34 of those countries, people have more positive feelings about AI than negative ones, despite the fact that 57% of adults globally have never used this technology.

China has the highest level of optimism, with 93% of people expecting that AI will mainly benefit their own country; Vietnam follows with 91%. In contrast, Bangladesh (34%), Egypt (35%), and the United States (36%) have the lowest percentages. It is noteworthy that wealthy Western countries, including the United States, the Netherlands, and Canada, not only have a high rate of use of AI, but also exhibit the highest levels of concern; in the United States, 74% of adults aware of AI said it made them worried, which is higher than in any other surveyed country.

However, this anxiety tends to diminish as familiarity increases: in nearly all countries, those who use AI daily report significantly less concern about technical accuracy and higher levels of trust, whereas those who do not use it frequently or never use it experience the opposite. This indicates that the adoption of AI is closely related to a sense of comfort. Nevertheless, Gallup points out that this survey cannot determine which factor is driving the other.

Going deeper

The Fortune AIQ ranking was released this morning. This ranking assesses Fortune 500 companies that have achieved significant and measurable impacts by adopting AI. The ranking is based on ServiceNow's Enterprise AI Maturity Index, which is an annual framework used to measure the readiness of public and private sector organizations to adopt and scale AI in areas such as governance, data foundation, automation, and work processes.

In order to establish the rankings on a basis of comparable, real-world evidence, Fortune collaborated with Enterprise Technology Research (and ETR) to assess how Fortune 500 companies actually deploy AI, as well as how technology leaders view these investments in comparison to their peers.

For the complete list, see here.

Overheard

These days, I spend most of my time on one thing: persuading those with technical capabilities to use those abilities for truly important matters. This is the kind of conversation I wish I could have had earlier in my career.

– Beam, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of Alex Stephany. Beam is a company that focuses on the field of human services AI. In an Fortune opinion article, he wrote about his pursuit of the meaning of work.