OpenAI’s chief financial officer, Sarah Friar, believes familiarity with artificial intelligence (AI) tools is becoming an important skill for finance professionals. She has compared the importance of current AI tools to that of spreadsheet software in previous decades. Speaking at the Liquidity Summit 2026, Friar said OpenAI’s hiring expectations are evolving alongside the rapid adoption of AI across workplaces.According to a report by Fortune, Friar said, “I would never hire a finance person who didn’t know how to use Excel, and I probably wouldn’t hire a finance person today that doesn’t know how to use a tool like Codex.”Codex is OpenAI’s AI coding agent that helps automate software development and technical tasks through natural-language prompts. According to OpenAI, knowledge workers now account for roughly 20% of Codex users and are growing at more than three times the rate of other user groups.The Friar’s comments come as companies increasingly seek employees who can work effectively with AI systems. A recent Deloitte Finance Trends 2026 survey, which gathered responses from more than 1,300 finance leaders globally, found that AI and automation capabilities have become the most sought-after skills when recruiting and developing finance talent. These skills ranked ahead of traditional areas such as regulatory compliance and cost management.How AI skills are becoming part of finance hiringThe growing emphasis on AI proficiency highlights how finance roles are changing within technology companies and beyond. As AI tools become more integrated into everyday workflows, employers are increasingly looking for candidates who can use them to improve productivity, automate tasks, and analyse information more efficiently.Friar suggested that understanding AI tools may soon become a standard expectation for finance professionals, much like proficiency with spreadsheets and other core business software. Her remarks also reflected a broader challenge facing the AI industry: access to computing power.Compute refers to the processing power, chips, and infrastructure required to train and run AI models. As demand for AI services continues to increase, major AI companies have been racing to secure additional capacity.“Compute is a very scarce resource at the moment,” Friar said, describing demand as rising up a “vertical wall” that continues to outpace supply.The Friar said OpenAI expects computing resources to remain constrained even as the company continues to invest heavily in infrastructure. The executive defended OpenAI’s strategy of securing large amounts of compute capacity ahead of demand, a move that had previously drawn criticism for its scale and cost.“Thank God we did because in ’26 we still won’t have enough compute,” she said.She also emphasised the importance of ensuring that access to AI technologies remains inclusive as adoption expands.“It’s really important there on the trust side, that we don’t leave communities behind,” she said.