In this special episode of Future Finance, hosts Paul Barnhurst and Glenn Hopper take a reflective look back at the year 2024. They explore the biggest moments in technology and finance, share personal milestones, and make bold predictions for 2025. The conversation is an engaging mix of professional insights, personal anecdotes, and a bit of humor to ring in the new year.

Paul Barnhurst known as "The FP&A Guy," is a finance thought leader who bridges the gap between finance, technology, and strategy. Glenn Hopper: A finance professional and author focused on leveraging AI and technology in finance to drive innovation. Glenn brings expertise from a practitioner’s perspective and insights into the evolving role of technology in business.

In this episode, you will discover:

• Key technological advancements of 2024, including AI tools and quantum computing breakthroughs.

• The challenges and opportunities in integrating generative AI into financial workflows.

• Reflections on the professional and personal growth journeys of the hosts over the past year.

• Predictions for 2025 in AI, finance, and beyond, including the potential of AI agents and quantum computing.

• The evolution of tools for fractional CFOs and the future of scalable financial solutions.

Paul and Glenn explored the dynamic intersection of finance, technology, and innovation. 2025 holds the promise of even greater strides in AI, quantum computing, and tools that redefine how finance professionals work and collaborate. This episode has been a blend of reflection, insight, and a bit of fun to welcome the new year.

Join hosts Glenn and Paul as they unravel the complexities of AI in finance:

Follow Glenn:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gbhopperiii

Follow Paul:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thefpandaguy

Follow QFlow.AI:
Website - https://bit.ly/4fYK9vY

Future Finance is sponsored by QFlow.ai, the strategic finance platform solving the toughest part of planning and analysis: B2B revenue. Align sales, marketing, and finance, speed up decision-making, and lock in accountability with QFlow.ai.

Stay tuned for a deeper understanding of how AI is shaping the future of finance and what it means for businesses and individuals alike.

In Today’s Episode:

[01:44] Introduction to the Episode

[02:44] Looking Back at 2024

[12:45] Biggest Tech Trends of 2024
[19:49] Emerging Financial Technologies
[23:06] Fractional CFO Tools
[27:21] Innovative Planning Tools.

[30:57] Predictions for 2025

[37:08] Fun with AI-Generated Songs

[44:26] Closing Remarks


Full Show Transcript

[00:01:07] Host 1: Paul Barnhurst: Welcome to the future finance show. Future Finance is brought to you by qflow.ai, the strategic finance platform solving the toughest part of planning and analysis. B2B revenue aligned sales, marketing and finance seamlessly speed up decision making and lock in accountability with qflow.ai.

[00:01:44] Host 2: Glenn Hopper: Paul. Happy new year.

[00:01:45] Host 1: Paul Barnhurst: Yes, happy new Year and Merry Christmas. Happy holidays. Let's see Kwanzaa. And the most famous of all, Festivus. For the rest of us. You know that reference? 

[00:01:57] Host 2: Glenn Hopper: That's right. It's this. Maybe in this episode we could air our grievances.

[00:02:00] Host 1: Paul Barnhurst: Let me get a poll.

[00:02:01] Host 2: Glenn Hopper: Yeah.

[00:02:02] Host 1: Paul Barnhurst: I mean, I just have to take the top part off and we can make it into a poll.

[00:02:06] Host 2: Glenn Hopper: You know, hey, this is a little bit different episode. No guests this time. We're in a transition period. One year ending and the new year beginning. And we thought maybe this would be a good time to reflect on 2024. And maybe I've already gone on record and said, I'm the worst futurist ever. My predictions are never true, but it doesn't stop me from making them every year. So maybe we could talk. We could look back at 24, we can make some resolutions, make some predictions for 25. What do you think? Kind of just an adlib episode this time. 

[00:02:37] Host 1: Paul Barnhurst: So I think we cover a little bit of like I said, 24 and 25 and see where it leads us. So question for you thinking of 24, what's been your best moment of 24, maybe professionally? Do you have a moment that you're like, oh wow, that was really rewarding.

[00:02:55] Host 2: Glenn Hopper: Yeah. I mean, I guess I mean.

[00:02:57] Host 1: Paul Barnhurst: Outside of kicking off the podcast with me, I mean, that's the obvious. 

[00:03:02] Host 2: Glenn Hopper: Yeah. Actually, there have been a lot of changes for me for 2024. And actually this is going to answer this because 2024 has been very interesting. But you and I have this conversation a lot, but I guess I'll share it with the broader audience. So 2024, I leaned really heavily into doing courses even more public speaking, really focused on getting the word out about new technology and talking to finance and accounting people about how they can use this technology. And it's been great. And also this podcast and then the transition with me taking FP&A today and you take an FP&A tomorrow. So a lot of yammering by me this year when my goal with all this was never to be a professional talker, but more to just get the word out there. But what's happening and this is going to be a transition for me in 25. We're still doing the podcast and all that, but I've got to shift a little bit because while it seemed like getting out there and talking about all this technology and doing all the courses would be a great way to sort of get out there as a I hate this word, but I'm going to say it anyway, a thought leader. 

[00:04:17] Host 1: Paul Barnhurst: I knew you were an influencer or thought leader, which I know are your two favorite terms.

[00:04:21] Host 2: Glenn Hopper: Actually in prompt engineering is another one that goes up there with terms that make me cringe. But what's happened is, you know, I like to think of myself as a practitioner first. And by talking so much about this, I think I've moved away from the doing. And I've done some cool builds this year. But definitely the lion's share of my time has gone into talking about it. So for me, while it's been amazing to watch, and also, I just completely blew past the fact that I had a new book come out this year. 

[00:04:50] Host 1: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah, I was going to bring that up in a minute, but I'll let you finish.

[00:04:53] Host 2: Glenn Hopper: So. But with all that, it's been great. And I think that I've laid some groundwork. But in 25, for me, a shift is going to be more to doing and building. And so I'm kind of excited about how 24 went, but I'm also really excited about a slightly new direction for 25. How about you?

[00:05:10] Host 1: Paul Barnhurst: Well, you know, 24 has been a year of building one, you know, started FP&A tomorrow, which you mentioned. We started Future Finance, did some training for Wharton. They call it the certificate of FP&A. That's the new name for it. And so, you know, did some of that. And so it's been a good year. You know I worked with Walmart. But at the same time it's when does it slow down. You know as a business owner it's like when do you decide enough is enough. How do you know you've made it past that curve and finding that, you know, kind of personal professional balance? That's kind of been the thing for me is it's been a big year of building. But now it's more thinking. Where do I really want to take this? How do I find that right balance and do more? On the personal side, I feel like there's a look at the personal life. Yeah, there have been some family moments and things, but I don't feel like there's been the accomplishments I'd like on that side. So for me, I think coming to the end of the year, a little bit of that, a reflection of all right, what does 25 look like type of thing. But it's been a good year. You know, a lot of good experiences. And we got to meet for the first time at FATE. You know I got to meet a lot of people and lost a lot of good business accomplishments. You know, I got the Microsoft MVP. That was a highlight. Never thought I'd have that. And so did the FMI program. The AFM and, you know, should be a record year for revenue, not income because I spent a lot more this year building the business. But yeah, that's how it goes is they you start to understand a little bit of those cash flows as you're growing quickly and you're waiting for people to pay you, and you're like, I got more four expenses now. 

[00:06:50] Host 2: Glenn Hopper: Yeah. So. And this is because I know you still you do obviously a great deal of lecturing and teaching on FP&A, but do you still take clients where you're doing? Do you do any just straight FP&A work anymore or is it all about teaching and training?

[00:07:06] Host 1: Paul Barnhurst: Very, very little. I have one client that I do some modeling for. I had one person that I took on as a client for part of the year, so I think I had maybe three projects during the year that were FP&A related. And in total, I might have spent probably less than 100 hours. I'd say the more kind of client related end of the year. I did my first software selection consulting project where I helped a company select their FP&A vendor. So I helped them shortlist the tools, review their RFP, watch all the demos from the different vendors. They're like, do you want to attend them live? Like, no, because all the vendors know me and know I think they need to impress me instead of, you know, meeting your needs. I'll watch it after the fact. When they know. Know that I'm watching it and give you my feedback. Which is kind of weird because it's like I should be able to watch it. But since they all know me, so that's something I did that I call, you know, a little more traditional DNA type work, but it's much more tied to what I talk about a lot.

[00:08:06] Host 2: Glenn Hopper: Yeah. Isn't it kind of weird that you now have the MVP? So you're black belt, but you're not competing anymore. If you're not doing this, you know, you're just you have your own dojo and you're, you're using those skills to, to teach others. Does it? I mean, obviously it's where your focus is. But do you see kind of really that that's where you want to be. You're not missing doing the actual.

[00:08:29] Host 1: Paul Barnhurst: You know, that there are aspects I miss for sure. You know, I miss the relationship, seeing the business grow. I'll be honest, I can't say I miss ten rounds of budget process and being up in the middle of the night. There's aspects of it I miss. You know, there's some of the modeling, but for the most part I really enjoy. I love being able to interview people, talk to people and learn from them, and then teach others and have people tell me what I taught them, made a difference, and have them reach out to me like I do a lot of advising for people, hey, what certificate should I take? Since I'm familiar with the AFP program, I'm familiar with the worker program. I'm very familiar with, you know, FMI, and so I'm getting quite familiar with all programs. I often will, you know, give people my thoughts, like saying, here's the benefits on this one and that one. And so you still get a lot of connection to FP and A and I enjoy that. But I know it'd be hard to go back at this point. I think I'd have a real hard time going back full time.

[00:09:33] Host 2: Glenn Hopper: And I think that's for me, I'm not ready to make that leap. I mean, for me, you know, I'm a little bit older than you are, and I'm trying to sort of guide my path to retirement. And I think a semi-retirement path for me will be I'll go teach. You know, I'll be an adjunct professor somewhere and just lean into teaching. But I feel like I've got especially because my focus has been so strong on AI. I feel like this is not a moment to. It's weird because the same thing that compelled me that I've got to write this book. I've got to put these courses together. I've got to get so many people exposed to this. They know it's out there. That same drive that led me to do all that is driving me now to. And now I need to get back in and really focus on building something because I want to do kind of one last push. Or it could be building out, you know, in my consulting practice, being able to apply this to more, more clients. Or it could be, you know, building a singular product and it could be, you know, I'm on some advisory boards now and I do some, some angel investing. And I think, you know, there will be more of that. But also, how is my day going to be spent? And I'm not ready to go fully into the teaching yet. So it'll be interesting to see for both of us how this next year.

[00:10:42] Host 1: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah. You want that next big AI roll? You want to lead a company? Yeah. I'll see. Your name is. I'll see you ringing the bell one day and we'll be having an episode about that experience. You know, the only time I think I would really go to work for someone, obviously, if the economy turned and I had to family, I'd do it tomorrow. Right? But beyond that, I think it'd have to be just a really good opportunity in a company. I believe that could be a winner and kind of that, you know, that last big opportunity because I've always enjoyed startups. I think it'd be fun to see something really scale big because I've never worked. I mean, I've started my own business, but I've never worked for a startup from those very early days. I think that would be interesting. And is that Odyssey going on in the background there? Are we watching Space Odyssey?

[00:11:27] Host 2: Glenn Hopper: It is. You know, normally when I say I'm at home today and normally when I'm at home, I just have a static picture back there and I thought how about peek into the future and see what things will be like in 2001?

[00:11:39] Host 1: Paul Barnhurst: You know, they missed a few things, but, you know, details.

[00:11:44] Host 2: Glenn Hopper: You got to say whatever. 68, when 2001. So for those of you who are watching the video on my I've got a TV in the background where I normally just have art pictures displayed and, I was streaming Space Odyssey and I thought, well, that's okay. We'll just leave it going because it sort of fits the theme for the show. But, you know, in 1968, when this was released, this probably seemed like a pretty realistic. I mean, think about the space race and what was going on back then. And speaking of being a bad futurist, I'm sure that it seemed completely plausible, you know, have bases on the moon and technology to be able to fly to Jupiter and all that. So, yeah, I know this, by the way. This is top three movies of all time for me, 2001. 

[00:12:29] Host 1: Paul Barnhurst: You know, you're making me think I might have. I can't even remember the last time I saw it. I might have to watch it. It's been forever, but, so we've talked a little bit at a professional or personally professionally about 2024, in your view, what have been the biggest technology advancements, the biggest 2 or 3 things that you've seen that you're like, just like, wow, you know, obviously one of them has to be AI, something non AI related than whatever else. What are a couple of those.

[00:13:00] Host 2: Glenn Hopper: Yeah I mean, I guess, the weird thing is when you follow the AI techs as closely as I do a year, you know, it's dog years or whatever. So thinking about what's happened in 2024, the biggest, the biggest thing, I guess, is I thought that in 2024, we were going to get a huge improvement, just like we did from ChatGPT 3.5 to 4. And I think that OpenAI kind of led us along this path to make us think that this version five, this massive new version was going to come out and then they changed pretty early in the year that. Well, it's going to be a while before we have this. So the fact that we didn't have another giant step, which is it's an unrealistic expectation because as technology is moving so quickly, but they just spoiled us in 23 with the massive jumps in power. And I will say going to four zero, there was a lot that was happening under the hood that made for it was a lot more capable than the original, like 4 in 4 turbo were. So that was good. But it was incremental improvement. And then, you know, we didn't get a GT five, but we did get this new type of oh one, the Reasoner and some of the other stuff that, that between anthropic and OpenAI and even Gemini now, late in the year catching up on some things. The new thing that I was not expecting at all this year that really surprised me. And that I loved was the notebook LLM from Google. 

[00:14:43] Host 1: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah, I thought Notebook LM was really cool the way it would. You could just load up just your documents. You wanted to supplement research on this, just that it's just a nice almost learning tool. But the cool that it did the podcasts and yeah, I like notebook. That was a fun one.

[00:15:01] Host 2: Glenn Hopper: And the recent iterations of it, you can now interact with those podcast hosts. You can ask them questions. 

[00:15:08] Host 1: Paul Barnhurst: Oh, can you now, I didn't know that. I hadn't seen that yet.

[00:15:09] Host 2: Glenn Hopper: Yeah. So Google's, you know, they made a late run late in the year. I don't, you know, I'm again like we talked about in the last episode, I pay for Gemini only because I just want to see where they are. And I think it will be just like copilot. I pay for copilot too. I think they're both going to be insanely useful and neither of them are yet. But, yeah, I don't know. I mean, a lot of amazing stuff. And even if technology didn't advance at all. It will take a while because going around and talking to people about this, so many people don't even know the capabilities of the models that are out there now. So you could completely pause advancement, and we could spend a couple of years just figuring out all the ways that we can use the technology where it is today. And there's these incremental improvements. A lot of it is UX, but there are things that are going to be better and they're all anthropic. Had some good ideas early in the year. ChatGPT had some ideas. And now Google is doing that with Gemini with and this is with the new changes to notebook LLM. We're starting to see how this interface is going to be more natural, like think about just the evolution of the how we've interacted with our regular computers and regular software over the years. It's just there's incremental gains that are going to happen. So even if nothing big happens, we're still going to see productivity gains and things happen. But I think that a lot of exciting stuff is going to happen in 25. And we'll talk about our predictions, I guess, later in the show. But one thing I missed was I really thought 2024 was going to be the year of AI agents. And the fact that we haven't gotten I mean, everybody's talking about agents, but nobody's really delivered yet. A truly meaningful agent in AI.

[00:16:48] Host 1: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah, I agree. I mean, some tools have done a good job of putting something in the platform that you could ask questions of, but it's not. It's just not at scale yet. It's not there. You're starting to see it. I think 25, 26, which we'll talk about in a minute. That makes a lot of sense because, yeah, it's been the year of a ton of talk and playing, but you're not seeing companies yet really use agents where AI has not gone yet. I know we're getting a little bit ahead. You tell me if you disagree, but it's really truly integrating generative. So ignore machine learning RPA other you know AI Generative AI really haven't been able to naturally integrate in our workflow yet. The closest we have is some of the asking questions. And, you know, I've seen some tools that, hey, you can ask it automatically right up the variance for different lines right in your commentary. Yeah, that's the starting of getting into your workflows. So you're seeing little bits, but ones where it prompts you, you get an email saying, hey, looks like these things are missing for month end. Do you want me to use last month's accrual and starting to smart and thinking for us and being proactive? That's really when I think it's integrated into the workflow and we're just touching the surface on that in my mind.

[00:18:11] Host 2: Glenn Hopper: Yeah. And a lot of that is the difficulty, you know, so the LMS themselves, they don't have a memory and they don't. So you know, you can use Rag and be able to have, you know, these documents that it refers to as sort of a memory. But then there's also how, since it doesn't have its own memory, it has to access data. It can be unstructured data or structured data or whatever, but it has to know where to go to get it. It has to know how to get it. It has to know your database schema and all that. So really, if you're not integrated directly in like so for the LLM to be able to know where to get the information and for you to not have to come out of your workflow and go to this web based tool. You know, I do think that's what we're going to see, and I don't think it'll happen in 25. But if you think about SAS, all the ERPs out there and all the big software products that we all use, if you think about it, they are essentially just massive databases with a nice skin on them that lets you interact with the data within the database. Imagine when we get a little bit further with generative AI and it doesn't matter. It's almost like, you know, dashboards are huge, but it doesn't matter what the dashboard is. It doesn't matter what the interface is. It's when you have this tool that you can go just get whatever data and it'll display it however you want. It's right in the moment. And that's where you're going to start seeing some huge gains. But it's not going to happen overnight. So but you know what I mean.

[00:19:49] Host 1: Paul Barnhurst: I do. So a couple of things for me in 24 that I haven't had to dig in as much as I'd like. I think a really interesting and I'll go with some different ones than you, even though I could talk about some of those. So one is I just saw that I thought was really interesting. Google just did a weather forecasting tool that they released that was more accurate than any weather forecasting tool out there. And they're using a method to take all the different tools together in the way they've built the AI and had like a 98% Accuracy. Two weeks out on web, you know, it was higher than any method used. And so I thought that was really interesting. And where that excited me is that they're getting that good with weather. Take that type of technology and those type of processes and the, you know, the statistical modeling and the AI they're using, and start applying that to business forecasting. Right, because it's coming. And I think it'll be really interesting because the reality is machines, if there's external things that we're not aware of, pieces we can layer in that make our forecasts a lot more accurate outside of the things we have to layer in the new product, the things we know about that, the companies, you know, someone they're going to acquire, whatever. I think they can be a lot more accurate, right? We already see that historically many of them are. But I think things like that. So that one has to be really exciting. I don't know if you saw that from Google, but there was a report about their weather tool that was really accurate. 

[00:21:23] Host 2: Glenn Hopper: Yeah, I did see that in my. My first thought was, well, that's great, especially if we are actually going to defund NOAA and the National Weather Service and all that. It'll be good that there will be a way that we can still get our weather. Thanks, Google.

[00:21:38] Host 1: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah, the other. So I'm going to go one more in the AI area. And then I'm going to go outside a little bit on 1 or 2 things. So one that and I haven't had a chance to play with it because when I tried to log in it was down because it was so busy, but one that I thought is really interesting, the progress we made and what we're seeing on the hay right texts that it creates a video. I just find it fascinating. Is there a big AI? Is there a big finance application here? No. Not really. You know, I don't I guess maybe you know how we like more notebook LM but maybe you could give it your text for a month end type thing, and it puts together a video that you could send to your board, and, I don't know, the board really wants some dummy video. They just. Your audio is good enough and you could have, you know, no book or others do that that's already there. So not necessarily a finance application, but being a content creator, it's interesting to watch. And just from society, it's a little freaky and scary because it's so easy to make basically deep fakes and things like that. I mean, those are getting easier and easier, you know, how often are we going to be able to know if something's real or not in this world, which is a little, a little troubling at the same time, but it's not quite there.

[00:22:53] Host 1: Paul Barnhurst: If you've watched some of the movement on some of them where someone's walking and things, you're like, okay, there's no way that a real person walks that way. There's some improvements for sure. Yeah. So, you know, just kind of the video, Sora, we talked about that. The other thing for me in 25, two things that have been interesting and I was going to do for one, isn't so much a technological advance, but to see how there's been a real shift in all these FPGA tools. As you know, the last few years there's been a ton of and then there's been a shift to AI tools. But the other thing I've seen a huge growth in, in 24 is trying to create tools specifically for fractional CFOs. I don't know if you've noticed a lot of companies coming to you, but I've had a lot this year that are really doubling down and trying to grow in that fractional space. And I've just found that really interesting because it's a different need. And for the longest time it never made financial sense because of the implementation and the time to put a tool in place. Now the technology's there where they can do it for small and large, but it's really trying to figure out in a way that it makes sense for these.

[00:24:03] Host 1: Paul Barnhurst: For fractional CFOs, there's enough savings, enough standardization. They build a good enough process because you need some really good established processes and make it really easy, especially if you have hundreds of companies, because nobody wants any level of custom work for every company. They want it to be simple, so that's been an interesting one for me. Have you seen a lot of that yourself? Have you had a lot reach out to you? I know you've done some work in the fractional space.

[00:24:27] Host 1: Paul Barnhurst: Ever feel like your go to market teams and finance speak different languages? This misalignment is a breeding ground for failure in pairing the predictive power of forecasts and delaying decisions that drive efficient growth. It's not for lack of trying, but getting all the data in one place doesn't mean you've gotten everyone on the same page. Meet qflow.ai, the strategic finance platform purpose built to solve the toughest part of planning and analysis B2B revenue. Qflow quickly integrates key data from your go to market stack and accounting platform, then handles all the data prep and normalization. Under the hood, it automatically assembles your go to market stats, make segmented scenario planning a breeze and closes the planning loop. Create airtight alignment, improve decision latency, and ensure accountability across the teams.

[00:25:35] Host 2: Glenn Hopper: Yeah. So, as a go to market strategy, it's kind of interesting because I think of in the consulting space, I'm always thinking if I can get in with a good PE group that gets me access to their portfolio companies or, you know, VC, but that's a slightly different group that are in the VC bucket. But, it makes sense as a go to market strategy for the software creators, because if you can get in with fractional CFOs, you're getting use in a bunch of different industries and you're getting into a bunch of different clients. So I like it as a strategy. But I think your point on the cost like for the problem is, if you're doing fractional CFO, you have all these different GLS, you have all these different software systems, and it's like nothing makes sense for me to use across all my clients. Unless you are going to insist that all your clients be on the same platform. But I think as the cost goes down and the barrier to entry into that, that software market is lower. And it does make sense to go for fractional CFOs. But the fractional CFO is just a strange role to be in in general, because the kind of work you do, you know, it's for companies who, you know, maybe are an interim, but if you're not an interim, it's, you know, they're maybe not ready for a CFO and they may not want to pay more than 5 or 10 hours a month for your time. You know, they'll have their controllership and their bookkeeping and all that. But then, so how is the best? What's the best use of your time there? And, and you would think it's to be strategic and not to be the one who's actually putting together models and everything for them. So maybe these tools, if they make it more efficient so you can actually be more strategic. You know, that would make a lot of sense. So it'll be yeah, I'll be interested to see where that trend goes.

[00:27:20] Host 1: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah. We're definitely in some growth there. The other one I think you'll find really interesting and I'd love to get your thoughts. So I've met over the last few weeks with a number of different companies. So there's one company I've met with where they want to create a tool for the mid market that doesn't have an implementation process. You know, kind of plug led for planning software, which many people have tried. Nobody's been successful. It's all bespoke professional services. You got to do some level of implementation if you're anything beyond SMB and cookie cutter, right? Because every company plans so different, as you know, and the GLS are all different. But what they're doing is they're trying to make it 100% pass through. They're not storing any of the data. They're not building a database. What they're doing is they're saying, hey, most mid-market when they do their consolidation and other stuff, especially, you know, before they get a planning tool, they are using Excel. The logic is in Excel. We're going to take all the logic from there. We're going to pass through the data from the ERP. Do your reporting, planning, try to be that type of tool. And to me, I just don't see how you could scale without storing it. You're going to have to store that data to manage that scale. If you're trying to do planning, reporting fine. No problem passing through there, maybe even some consolidation. But right month over month, you're starting to get huge amounts of data. And I want to go back a couple of years. There needs to be kind of quick retrieval. So I'll get your thoughts. Do you see that working.

[00:28:51] Host 2: Glenn Hopper: If you're taking data out of GL, you know, if you're just always going back to the GL, you know, it sort of is what it is. And if you're doing the if you're putting a reporting layer in there, that's fine. And if the reporting layer I guess I could, you know, if you have your rules and logic in the reporting layer, but it's still pointed at the source of truth here and you can pull it down. I don't think you need to pull the data into your environment to be able to scale, but you still.

[00:29:21] Host 1: Paul Barnhurst: What about the planning side and the workflow and collaboration and all the things you get typically with planning? Well, I agree reporting, probably even consolidation. Yeah. It's not going to be big enough. You can just kind of pass that all through and do that side of it. But really being a robust planning tool, that's where I struggle. 

[00:29:40] Host 2: Glenn Hopper: Yeah I guess on the planning side, you're not going to manipulate the source data. So if you're doing your planning and you don't have the data in there at all and want to look in, collaborate and look at it, yeah, I could see I could see issues around that. I'd like to hear. Totally. I'd like to hear some.

[00:29:57] Host 1: Paul Barnhurst: Successful because I think it's a good idea. Yeah. And so we'll see. But it was really interesting chatting with them. It took me a while as they're explaining it, I didn't get it. And finally like, oh, you're not storing any of the data. Okay. Because I'm so used to, you know, the standard model. And we got talking. I had to stop him, like, okay, let me see that. I understand how you're thinking about this. So it will be exciting to see. I'm like, you know, keep you in the loop. I wish you the best. I think it's, you know, you have some real challenges you got to figure out. So that's the other one that was interesting for me this year is that idea of, you know, really trying to eliminate or substantially reduce that whole implementation and going to a plg with planning tools, which everybody wants, because we all know those professional service fees are expensive.

[00:30:48] Host 2: Glenn Hopper: Yep, yep.

[00:30:49] Host 1: Paul Barnhurst: Oh, I guess what 25 should we talk about 25 for a minute. It's almost here, but it will be here by the time we released this. So let's go with what has you most excited for 25? Maybe something you already know about or that you're excited about. And what's your biggest prediction for 25 when it comes to kind of technology and AI?

[00:31:11] Host 2: Glenn Hopper: I don't. I'm tempering my excitement here because every year I've thought, you know, maybe we will get a little glimmer a little closer to it. But month over month in 24, seeing the increased adoption and people seeing the efficiency gains and the benefits of using generative AI has been pretty fun to watch in 2024. However, finance and accounting were a little bit behind the curve on adoption compared to other groups. You know, marketing, legal even. There's other areas that, especially copy and language and text intensive areas where they're really using this. I would I'm excited because I think that finance and accounting will continue to adopt this, and we'll start seeing more improvements in the nature of the work that we do because of technology getting more accessible and getting more integrated. So I'll be curious to see what kind of the big SaaS providers do with integrating generative AI into the tools that we already use, and exposing it to more people and more people in finance, leadership, sort of understanding and embracing and starting to lean into generative AI and the power it can do. So I'm kind of excited to see where that goes. But we're also that said, we're not going to blindly go into generative AI adoption. And if we go in willy nilly and don't plan for it, there's going to be a lot of issues when you have a non-deterministic technology trying to report on deterministic values and in finance and accounting.

[00:32:42] Host 2: Glenn Hopper: So it'll be interesting, you know, so I'm optimistic that we're going to see some smooth rollouts and increased use of generative AI in accounting and finance. The big technology jump though that's going to make this even easier. It's just I don't understand the chasm between where we are now and these really working as promised. But AI agents that we talked about earlier. There's so much money and so much attention being focused on these. I've got to think someone we're going to start seeing not, you know, maybe not a single agent that is could act as your executive assistant and do everything that that a human could do in that construct. But I think purpose specific agents that can do things that will help in our workflow and, and think of an agent that could reconcile accounts like that would be a massive time saver or something like that, or an agent that could, you know, process our payables or whatever. Think of all the functions. I'd like to see where agents are going to be applied for that in 2025.

[00:33:45] Host 1: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah. No, that makes a lot of sense. I think for me, the thing that has me excited in 25 when we talk kind of predictions is I think we're going to start to see 25 more in the back half of the year where we're going to really start to hear more about quantum computing. And then the 26th, we'll start to see some a little bit more for the math. Not at scale. I think that's still probably 2 to 5 years away really scale with quantum computing. But I don't know if you saw Google. I saw this article from came out three hours ago. As I was thinking quantum computing. Google makes a big splash unveiling Willow, a quantum chip that, among other things, needs five minutes to solve a problem that would take conventional supercomputers around ten septillion years. That's one, followed by 25 zeros, and it's solving it in five minutes.

[00:34:41] Host 2: Glenn Hopper: Yeah, and this has been the promise from the jump. And the reason that we, you know, this is a massive leap forward. And whether it's Google or IBM or any of the other players out there.

[00:34:53] Host 1: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah, everybody's working on their quantum computer chips. It's not a one company for sure.

[00:34:59] Host 2: Glenn Hopper: Yeah, but they all. If you listen to the company's talk, they say we don't need some sort of massive breakthrough at this point. They all have their maps of where it's going to go. And it's really about the errors, you know, the number of errors that these computers make and, and the way that they only operate, you know, they have to be maintained at near absolute zero. And only being able to put so many qubits on a chip, but they all see the path for how they're going to get there. And for this willow chip to be able to do that calculation, I don't know how many qubits it was in that particular one, but the most impressive part was that they overcame that error issue. But I think that's just one of the check marks that's in their roadmap to having, you know, true, reliable quantum computing at scale. And it's kind of like the AI predictions and everything. And I don't know, I mean, I'm enough of a dork that I've been reading about and geeking out about quantum computing for years and years. And, you know, it's always been way out there. But it's just it's interesting, timing wise, that all these kind of breakthroughs with AI and now quantum computing are happening on top of each other, because what's going to happen is the two, when they do hit some inflection point or near it, they're going to start being used together to super power the others.

[00:36:21] Host 1: Paul Barnhurst: That's what I think when the breakthrough comes, is when we reach that point that quantum computing can be used massively with these AI models. Because I've heard a lot of, you know, hey, I've been around for years and I don't know that it's coding that has got so much better. Yes, there've been breakthroughs, but how much of it is really able to do it is the computer and the speed and stuff is starting to catch up to allow us to process. You know, I kind of wonder a little bit. I think sometimes a lot of it's that we're starting to really get the processing speed we need. And so now people are able to do a lot more advancement in development. Right. It's definitely not in isolation. They both have contributed.

[00:37:06] Host 2: Glenn Hopper: Yeah. Yeah absolutely.

[00:37:08] Host 1: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah. So all right. So I thought we'd do what we'd close with. Kind of a fun little exercise here. So I have a pseudo open and I believe you have what you what you have, you have a. Okay. So we're going to ask it to create some songs here about, you know, the Future Finance podcast, a couple other fun things and just see how it does just have a little bit of fun. So I'm going to go ahead and share my screen here. And if you're watching on video you can watch this. If not, you can listen. So here's what I did. And it gave me two versions. So we'll see which one you like. I said, make a song about the podcast Future Finance with Glenn Hopper and Paul Barnhurst. So it created two different versions Pop dynamic And we'll just pay maybe the first 30s or so and we'll see what you think. It even gave me the words, all right, we're going to play this first song it created. As I mentioned, the prompt was make a song about the podcast Future Finance with Glenn and Paul. So it did a pop style song. I'm going to go ahead and hit play and we'll see how it does. Let's see what you think. Glenn.

[00:38:17] Host 2: Glenn Hopper: Give us a little more volume.

[00:38:21] Host 1: Paul Barnhurst: All right.

[00:38:24] AI Music: Glenn and Paul cracking codes, leaving marks. Numbers dance. Wild ideas ignite in the form of green dreams and insight. From Wall Street whispers to blockchain roars.

[00:38:51] Host 1: Paul Barnhurst: We have to go to the chorus. Then I'll stop playing it.

[00:38:54] AI Music: Cutting through gray. Future finance starts today. 

[00:38:59] Host 1: Paul Barnhurst: Here's our chorus.

[00:39:03] AI Music: Whenever money flows, the magic grows. Pull it! Pull away! Go! Charts and graphs. Clarity shines. Future finance and real time.

[00:39:15] Host 1: Paul Barnhurst: All right. There you go. You like that?

[00:39:17] Host 2: Glenn Hopper: That's gonna be tough to beat. Yeah.

[00:39:20] Host 1: Paul Barnhurst: I didn't want others. So we'll play the other one for a couple seconds. Then we'll see what you have. All right. Let me download the second one. It did two. So I think it's the same words. It just did a different version of this one. It looks like you can download audio and video. Yep. Okay. Let's do it. All right. Should hear it this time. So we'll just listen to this for a couple seconds. And you get to pick which one you like better.

[00:39:49] AI Music: Two fans in a room spinning Standing in the dark. Hall. Cracking codes. Leaving marks. No mistakes. Wild ideas. Ignite. In the world of green dreams and insight. And Wall Street whispers to blockchain roars. Opening doors.

[00:40:14] Host 2: Glenn Hopper: I think I'm going with the second version. I think I'm going number two. Yeah.

[00:40:18] Host 1: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah. You know. First I was going number one, but I really liked that second part. You gotta hear the chorus though, at number two before I can dive. So we're going to go a little. Yeah. Good point.

[00:40:25] AI Music: Yeah. Future Finance stars today. Where the money falls. The magic rose. Glen and Paul know where to go. Charts and graphs. Clarity shines. Future finance in real time.

[00:40:45] Host 1: Paul Barnhurst: All right, so there we go. We could use that as our theme song going forward. Let's see what your tool came up with. I'm gonna let you. All right, all right, take control. So, did you pick number two?

[00:40:56] Host 2: Glenn Hopper: Yeah, definitely number two there. Yep, yep. 

[00:40:59] Host 1: Paul Barnhurst: Kind of torn. I kind of like one, but I want to go with one just to be different. Our audience, please let us know which one you picked. We want to know which song you like best. All right. Now we're going to hear Glenn's version from his AI tool. So I'm going to stop my screen share. All yours.

[00:41:15] Host 2: Glenn Hopper: All right. I've got to follow some steps present. So you should be seeing my audio now.

[00:41:21] Host 1: Paul Barnhurst: Yep.

[00:41:22] Host 2: Glenn Hopper: All right. So mine. I said create an upbeat and humorous song about the Future of Finance podcast hosted by Paul Barnhorst and Glenn Hopper. And it gave us two laughter in numbers and finance and Fun United. I gotta say, I'm not optimistic with these two titles, but let's.

[00:41:42] Host 1: Paul Barnhurst: All right. Well let's see.

[00:41:44] Host 2: Glenn Hopper: Oh, we got our lyrics here. All right. So these are shorter. So I guess Udo lets you create and it does a short version. But then you can expand and turn it into a real song. If we know we need to get this out on the streets. All right. Let's see. Let's see version one. You hear that?

[00:42:03] AI Music: What a ride. Yeah, it's got some lighter on the side to finance. But second, spreadsheets on human never postpone. Who cares? Money talks up. Oh, yeah. I'm not.

[00:42:24] Host 1: Paul Barnhurst: You can stop it. It just.

[00:42:26] Host 2: Glenn Hopper: Yeah, yeah.

[00:42:27] Host 1: Paul Barnhurst: It doesn't sound good. You know. With a couple of iterations, you might get there. Like, you can see some of it, but it's not near as smooth as the other tool on that one. Would you agree. 

[00:42:39] Host 2: Glenn Hopper: All right. Yeah, yeah I would. That was from the beginning. It was not. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:42:44] Host 1: Paul Barnhurst: From the beginning we both kind of wonder.

[00:42:46] Host 2: Glenn Hopper: All right. Let's see what Udo does on track two here. Finance and fund United.

[00:42:52] AI Music: Tune in to Paul and Glenn on a finance spree.

[00:42:58] Host 2: Glenn Hopper: No no no.

[00:43:00] Host 1: Paul Barnhurst: I felt like I was listening to a cheap knockoff of Frank Sinatra.

[00:43:05] Host 2: Glenn Hopper: Yeah. Yeah. I was thinking, like, Paul Anka or something. I was getting ready to try and make my voice do that. Glottal fry. Singing Glenn and Paul on a finance spree.

[00:43:19] Host 1: Paul Barnhurst: Please spare me. Right. That would be the next slide.

[00:43:27] Host 2: Glenn Hopper: Yeah. Okay. You really let us down there, I don't know.

[00:43:29] Host 1: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah, definitely. If we had a rate, at least on this test, you know, all the way. So the one that was created for the Financial modeling World Cup. I don't know if you've seen that song on LinkedIn. It's kind of been all over. If you listen to my episode I just released on Financial Modelers Corner. I play part of it. It's in the background. The song was like so much. They played it the entire night of the competition, picked it up on ESPN. Microsoft shared it on its channel. The guy wrote the lyrics, but then he had to create a couple different versions and it's really good. It's funny, one of them is we have the best keyboard tappers in the land. It's one of the lines in it, you know, for a spreadsheet modeling competition. So if you get a chance, check that one out. It's really funny. So I thought, definitely I'm gonna have to try some more with, you know, I might have to come up with some, some, some theme songs that we can use from time to time.

[00:44:24] Host 2: Glenn Hopper: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

[00:44:26] Host 1: Paul Barnhurst: All right. Well, I think in closing, we just kind of closed, you know, this episode will air at the beginning of the new year. So we hope everybody had a good holiday season. When they're listening to this. We're looking forward to 25. Contact us. We'd love to hear from you guys and what you'd like to have us do in 25. We can continue to grow the show. We're excited to continue to bring you the best and brightest minds. And we'll just close by saying, Happy New Year to everybody. Let your robot overlords into your life now so that they know you cared about them back when they were just little children, right, Glenn?

[00:45:03] Host 2: Glenn Hopper: Okay. That's it. Happy New Year, everyone. Thank you for listening and for your continued support. And let's look forward to a great 2025.

[00:45:12] Host 1: Paul Barnhurst: Thanks for listening to the Future finance Show. And thanks to our sponsor, qflow.ai. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a rating and review on your podcast platform of choice and may your robot overlords be with you.