Gustavo’s Corner: AI News for CFOs - #9
This edition highlights how Google, Anthropic, Yahoo, and Apple are pushing AI deeper into everyday tools—browsers, spreadsheets, workspaces, media platforms, and even hardware. The common thread is a shift from standalone AI assistants toward embedded, agentic systems that can navigate software, manage multi-step tasks, and act directly inside the tools employees already use.
Google is expanding Chrome with deeper Gemini integration, unveiling a major update that embeds Gemini 3 across new browsing features. The highlight is a side panel that acts as a personalized assistant across Google tabs and apps, helping users stay oriented as they work. Google also introduced Auto Browse, an agentic tool that can navigate websites, log into accounts, and complete multi-step tasks on a user’s behalf, pausing before any purchase actions. The new capabilities are available now for AI Pro and Ultra subscribers and signal Google’s intent to make the browser itself an intelligent productivity layer.
Anthropic is bringing Claude directly into Excel, alongside a new “Tasks” system for Claude Code designed to handle complex workflows. Claude in Excel, now available for Pro subscribers, allows users to query any cell, test scenarios without breaking formulas, and debug errors with cell-level citations that make the logic easy to verify. At the same time, Anthropic replaced its older Todos feature with Tasks, giving Claude a more robust infrastructure to manage multi-step projects more efficiently and reliably.
Yahoo has launched Scout, a new AI-powered answer engine available through a standalone site and app, now in beta on desktop and mobile in the U.S. Scout is set to roll out across Yahoo properties including Mail, News, Finance, and Sports, and is powered primarily by Anthropic’s Claude, combined with Yahoo’s proprietary data and Microsoft Bing’s grounding API. Yahoo is positioning Scout as a free, ad-supported alternative to competitors like OpenAI and Google, emphasizing conversational answers with inline citations that send traffic back to publishers and leverage Yahoo’s 250 million monthly U.S. users.
Anthropic is also transforming Claude into a full digital workspace by embedding tools like Slack, Figma, Asana, Canva, and Box directly into the chat interface. This allows users to draft Slack messages, build Asana timelines, or create Figma mockups without leaving the conversation, reducing friction between thinking and execution. The update becomes even more powerful when paired with Claude Cowork, which lets users assign and manage multi-step tasks inside Claude, and is now available for Pro, Max, Team, and Enterprise subscribers.
Apple is reportedly exploring a wearable AI pin that resembles a thicker AirTag and includes cameras, microphones, a speaker, and wireless charging, according to reports from The Information and Bloomberg. At the same time, Apple is said to be planning a major overhaul of Siri into a more ChatGPT-style conversational assistant, potentially powered by Google’s Gemini. While the AI pin could launch as early as 2027 with ambitions to produce up to 20 million units, Apple may face challenges around privacy concerns and user trust following the high-profile failure of Humane’s AI pin.
Why this news is important to CFOs and their teams:
For CFOs and their teams, these developments signal a near-term change in how work gets done, not a distant experiment. As AI moves directly into Chrome, Excel, collaboration platforms, and enterprise workflows, finance leaders must rethink productivity, controls, and risk at the same time. Agentic tools promise real efficiency gains in analysis, reporting, and scenario modeling, but they also raise questions around data access, auditability, privacy, and vendor dependency. The finance function will increasingly sit at the center of deciding where AI is trusted to act autonomously, how results are validated, and how costs and benefits are measured—making AI governance and adoption strategy a core CFO responsibility rather than a purely technical one.
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/Gustavo
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