TL;DR — What You Need to Know:

• AI monetisation is a priority: Despite AI’s transformative potential, 71% of CFOs say they’re still struggling to make money from it.
• Traditional pricing is outdated: 68% of tech firms find their legacy pricing models don’t work for AI-driven economies.
• Boardrooms are getting serious: AI monetisation is now a formal boardroom priority, but the tools to track usage and profitability remain limited.

Global Bean Counters are Struggling to Unlock AI Monetisation, and That’s a Huge Issue

AI is being hailed as the next big thing in business transformation, yet many companies are still struggling to capture its financial value.

A new global study of 614 CFOs conducted by DigitalRoute reveals that nearly three-quarters (71%) of these executives say they are struggling to monetise AI effectively, despite nearly 90% naming it a mission-critical priority for the next five years.

So, what’s the hold-up? Well, it’s clear: traditional pricing strategies just don’t fit the bill in an AI-driven economy. Over two-thirds (68%) of tech firms say their legacy pricing models are no longer applicable when it comes to AI. And even though AI has moved to the boardroom’s priority list — 64% of CFOs say it’s now a formal focus — many are still unable to track individual AI consumption, making accurate billing, forecasting, and margin analysis a serious challenge.

The concept of an AI “second digital gold rush” has been floating around, with experts like Ari Vanttinen, CMO at DigitalRoute, pointing out that companies are gambling with pricing and profitability without real-time metering and revenue management systems.

This is where the real opportunities lie. Vanttinen’s insight?

So, businesses that can meter AI consumption at the feature level and align their finance and product teams around shared data will unlock the margins the market expects.

Regional differences are also apparent in the study. Nordic countries are leading in AI implementation but are struggling with profitability. Meanwhile, France and the UK are showing stronger early commercial returns. The US, while leading in AI development, is more cautious when it comes to monetisation at the organisational level.

Here’s the key takeaway for CFOs: AI is a long-term play, but to scale successfully, businesses need to align their product, finance, and revenue teams around usage-based pricing, invest in new revenue management infrastructure, and begin tracking consumption at the feature level from day one.

The clock is ticking — CFOs need to stop treating AI as a cost line and start seeing it as a genuine profit engine.

So, what’s holding your company back from capturing AI’s full value?

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TL;DR — What You Need to Know

• Duolingo is cutting contractors and ramping up AI use, shifting towards an “AI-first” strategy.
• Journalists link this to a broader, creeping jobs crisis in creative and entry-level industries.
• It’s not robots replacing workers — it’s leadership decisions driven by cost-cutting and control.

Are We at the Brink of an AI Jobs Crisis

AI isn’t stealing jobs — companies are handing them over. Duolingo’s latest move might be the canary in the creative workforce coal mine.

Here’s the thing: we’ve all been bracing for some kind of AI-led workforce disruption — but few expected it to quietly begin with language learning and grammar correction.

This week, Duolingo officially declared itself an “AI-first” company, announcing plans to replace contractors with automation. But according to journalist Brian Merchant, the switch has been happening behind the scenes for a while now. First, it was the translators. Then the writers. Now, more roles are quietly dissolving into lines of code.

What’s most unsettling isn’t just the layoffs — it’s what this move represents. Merchant, writing in his newsletter Blood in the Machine, argues that we’re not watching some dramatic sci-fi robot uprising. We’re watching spreadsheet-era decision-making, dressed up in futuristic language. It’s not AI taking jobs. It’s leaders choosing not to hire people in the first place.

In fact, The Atlantic recently reported a spike in unemployment among recent college grads. Entry-level white collar roles, which were once stepping stones into careers, are either vanishing or being passed over in favour of AI tools. And let’s be honest — if you’re an exec balancing budgets and juggling board pressure, skipping a salary for a subscription might sound pretty tempting.

But there’s a bigger story here. The AI jobs crisis isn’t a single event. It’s a slow burn. A thousand small shifts — fewer freelance briefs, fewer junior hires, fewer hands on deck in creative industries — that are starting to add up.

As Merchant puts it:

So now we have to ask: if companies like Duolingo are laying the groundwork for an AI-powered future, who exactly is being left behind?

Are we ready to admit that the AI jobs crisis isn’t coming — it’s already here?

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TL;DR — What You Need to Know

• Former OpenAI insiders say the company is straying from its nonprofit mission — and that could be dangerous.
• A legal letter urges US states to stop OpenAI’s transformation into a fully commercial venture.
• Critics argue the new structure would weaken its duty to humanity in favour of shareholder profits.

OpenAI For-Profit Transition: Could It Risk Humanity?

Former employees and academics are urging US courts to block OpenAI’s shift to a for-profit model, warning it could endanger humanity’s future.

The Moral Compass Is Spinning

OpenAI was founded with a mission so lofty it sounded almost utopian: ensure artificial intelligence benefits all of humanity. But fast forward to 2025, and that noble vision is under serious legal and ethical fire — from the very people who once helped build the company.

This week, a group of former OpenAI staffers, legal scholars, and even Nobel Prize winners sent an official plea to California and Delaware attorneys general: don’t let OpenAI go full for-profit. They claim such a move could put both the company’s original mission and humanity’s future at risk.

Among the voices is Nisan Stiennon, a former employee who isn’t mincing words. He warns that OpenAI’s pursuit of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) — a theoretical AI smarter than humans — could have catastrophic outcomes. “OpenAI may one day build technology that could get us all killed,” he says. Cheery.

At the heart of the complaint is the fear that OpenAI’s transition into a public benefit corporation (PBC) would legally dilute its humanitarian responsibilities. While PBCs can consider the public good, they’re not required to prioritise it over shareholder profits. Todor Markov, another ex-OpenAI team member now at Anthropic, sums it up: “You have no recourse if they just decide to stop caring.”

This all adds up to a dramatic ethical tug-of-war — between commercial growth and moral responsibility. And let’s not forget that CEO Sam Altman has already weathered a scandal in 2023 involving secret updates, boardroom drama, and a five-day firing that ended with his reinstatement.

It’s juicy, yes. But also deeply important.

Because whether or not AGI is even technically possible right now, what we’re really watching is a battle over how much trust we’re willing to place in companies building our digital future.

So here’s the question that matters:

If humanity’s safety depends on who’s in control of AGI — do we really want it run like just another startup?

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