How to use AI to turn numbers into stories in 5 minutes
You have 2 choices.
Most CFOs think they need better reports.
But the painful truth is they need better stories.
Financial storytelling isn't a soft skill. It’s your strategic weapon.
Boards expect clarity, not complexity.
Investors demand narratives that explain momentum, not just historical results.
Employees, customers, and partners want to believe in the vision, and numbers alone don't inspire it.
Inside companies, the CFO’s ability to turn raw numbers into a clear, credible, and compelling narrative is fast becoming the line between leadership and irrelevance.
Yet most CFOs are stuck:
Drowning in data: Endless reconciliations but little meaning.
Rushing through closes: Survival-mode timelines leave no space for insight.
Scrambling before board meetings: Last-minute story-stitching based on spreadsheets, not strategy.
The world is changing.
You don't have to operate this way anymore.
In today’s edition of AI CFO Office, I’ll break down:
What great financial storytelling actually looks like.
Why most CFOs still struggle.
The real pains CFOs are feeling today.
The bottom line.
If you want your boards, investors and leadership teams to lean forward at your story, this is your blueprint.
Read on…
What Great Financial Storytelling Actually Looks Like
Financial storytelling isn’t about explaining variances.
It’s about narrating the journey, past, present, and future, through a financial lens.
It’s answering the real leadership questions:
Are we winning or losing?
What levers should we pull next?
What risks are we not seeing yet?
What’s the financial shape of our future?
Great storytelling CFOs do 3 things differently:
1. Contextualize the Numbers
Numbers alone mean nothing.
Context makes them matter.
Good CFOs report, "Revenue is up 12%."
Great CFOs explain:
Our new European GTM strategy accelerated customer acquisition, driving a $7M Q2 outperformance versus plan.
No context = no insight.
CFO of Workday Zane Rowe translates financial results directly into operational strategy
Rowe's team uses AI for variance analysis, not to replace analysts, but to free them to build better narratives about what's changing, why, and what the company should do next.
2. Translate Complexity into Clarity
Finance is complex. Strategy is complex.
Storytelling demands simplicity.
The best CFOs simplify without dumbing down. They make complexity feel understandable, building confidence at every level.
If your CEO can't explain your financial story in 2 minutes, you haven't told it right.
OpenAI’s CFO Sarah Friar’s philosophy is simple
Speed to story is now a competitive advantage in finance.
When managing massive fundraising rounds, Friar built an internal GPT agent to instantly generate investor-ready narratives from company data. That takes care of precision, speed, and consistency.
3. Tie Financials to Strategic Outcomes
It’s not enough to say, ‘Expenses are rising.’
A great CFO shows how that spend is fueling expansion, innovation, or protecting market share.
Money isn't the story. Momentum is the story.
If you've seen me on LinkedIn, then you must know I always say this:
Storytelling is the most powerful skill in finance.
That’s the reason I built Finstory.ai so finance teams can focus less on formatting and more on framing strategic narratives based on real financial data.
Building reports was never easier, until now
Describe the report you need in plain language, like talking to an analyst.
finstory.ai understands financial context, asks clarifying questions, and generates professional drafts you can refine.
After getting a lot of interest, I opened up the waitlist for Finstory.ai
Why Most CFOs Struggle With Storytelling
Even brilliant CFOs often fall into these traps:
Siloed Mentality: Finance builds reports; strategy builds decks; no bridge.
Reactive Posture: Storytelling happens only after someone demands it.
Over-Engineering: Decks overloaded with noise instead of clear narratives.
Fear of Oversimplification: Analysts hide behind complexity and lose the audience.
Result: Finance becomes the historian, not the strategist.
While Microsoft’s CFO, Amy Hood, consistently links Microsoft's quarterly financials directly to its 10-year cloud and AI strategy, making even highly technical transformations feel inevitable to the market.
Investors know where the company is headed, not just how last quarter went.
The Real Pain CFOs Are Feeling Today
Under the surface, CFOs are frustrated:
Boards are restless. They expect real-time, story-first reporting, not spreadsheet walkthroughs.
Investors are impatient. They want instant, credible explanations for every shift in results.
Leadership is distracted. Without a clear financial story, they move slower and make worse decisions.
Teams are exhausted. Manual work leaves little bandwidth for insight-building.
Meanwhile, CFOs feel stuck, knowing they should elevate the narrative but trapped inside outdated workflows.
And to tackle these problems, 3 days ago, I quietly opened early access to finStory.ai
Without ads or major announcements, over 211 CFOs and finance leaders joined the waitlist. They realize financial storytelling isn't optional anymore.
It’s the future of influence inside companies.
Spots are filling up quickly. Join Priority Waitlist Here
CFOs and senior finance leaders have a rare, short-lived window of opportunity.
You can become indispensable by turning your ideas into reality before anyone else even realizes what's possible.
This no-code guide breaks down exactly how I built finstory.ai in 4 simple phases:
I built an app for CFOs and launched it (vibe coding works)
Most CFOs think AI is something they'll adopt eventually.
The Bottom Line
Modern finance isn’t about who closes the books fastest.
It’s about who frames the future best.
Here’s how you get there:
1. Prioritize narrative over reporting
Every close, every cycle, ask, ‘what's the real story we are telling?’
Numbers are the evidence. Narrative is the argument.
2. Reframe the team’s role
Move from report builders ➔ to story builders.
Analysis ➔ Narrative ➔ Strategic Action.
3. Add AI into the workflow
Operationalize AI today.
ChatGPT 4.5 for first-draft narratives.
DALL-E and BI tools for visual anchoring.
FinStory.ai for structured variance storytelling.
Train your team not to fear AI.
But to edit, guide, and improve AI outputs.
4. Measure the right things
Not just speed of close. Measure:
Investor clarity.
Board comprehension.
Strategic decision velocity.
Leadership “aha” moments.
5. Treat storytelling as a strategic asset
Every board deck, every earnings call, and every internal memo should move the story of your company forward.
Final Word
AI won’t replace CFOs.
But CFOs who master storytelling with AI will replace those who don’t.
You have 2 choices:
Stick to old reporting models and slowly fade into irrelevance.
Or build a finance office that leads with story, strategy, and speed.
The next 3 years won't be about who reports faster.
They'll be about who frames the future better.
So go ahead and help your office go from a reporting machine into a storytelling engine.
And that’s it for today.
See you on Thursday!
P.S. OnlyCFO will be joining us soon, sharing secrets for CFOs to become irreplaceable.
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I’m Wouter Born. A CFOTech investor, advisor, and entrepreneur.
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