Verification firm finds automated food content farms mislead consumers while capturing advertising revenue through fake imagery and authors.
DoubleVerify released its inaugural DEEP DIVES report on July 30, 2025, examining the proliferation of AI-generated recipe websites that may present challenges for digital advertisers. The analysis focuses on sites using artificial intelligence to create food content and imagery designed primarily to generate advertising revenue rather than provide authentic culinary value.
According to the research, the online recipe website market continues growing more than 15% annually, driven by consumer demand where 90% now rely on the internet as their primary source for recipes. This expansion creates revenue opportunities through advertising, affiliate marketing, and sponsored content, while technical accessibility through website creation tools makes launching recipe sites easier than ever.
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The report identifies a concerning trend where generative AI tools like ChatGPT and Claude increasingly create content and build recipe sites “with minimal human effort.” Publishers rely on AI-generated content to quickly produce articles, sometimes replacing real food photography with artificial images. According to DoubleVerify’s findings, “87% believe it’s important for an image to be authentic, indicating a preference for real, non-AI-generated content.”
DoubleVerify’s proprietary GenAI detection models identified multiple examples of ad-supported AI-generated recipe content. InsanelyGoodRecipes.com attracts over 3 million visits per month according to SimilarWeb data, yet DoubleVerify’s analysis indicates “the textual content on this site and many more like it is AI-generated.”
The verification firm conducted manual analysis revealing “multiple instances of potentially AI-generated images of food.” To test these findings, researchers recreated similar images using Midjourney AI software with text from the recipes, producing remarkably similar results to images appearing on the websites.
Beyond food imagery, the analysis uncovered AI-generated author profiles. The purported author “Kim” appears to use an AI-generated headshot, though DoubleVerify notes “the site appears to be run by a real person—an SEO expert—who has publicly discussed using GenAI for tasks like generating recipe headlines.”
Quick Recipes represents another example identified through DoubleVerify’s GenAI detection technology as “heavily populated with AI-generated food content and recipes.” The site displays several indicators of low quality including “cookie-cutter templates, editorial inconsistencies, broken links, and duplicated author identities.”
MarketGrow demonstrates how websites pivot to recipe content for advertising advantages. The site currently attracts nearly 4 million monthly visits according to SimilarWeb. However, before April 2024, MarketGrow operated as a stock market news site covering financial topics.
According to DoubleVerify’s analysis, “unlike a news site, which requires constant updates, a recipe site offers evergreen content that remains relevant over time.” Additionally, recipe sites “can support more ad slots while still being considered brand-suitable, making them particularly attractive for AI-driven content operations.”
The company’s proprietary GenAI detection models indicate “much of the text content on MarketGrow is AI-generated” along with multiple instances of potentially artificial food images. This pattern reflects broader industry trends where automated systems generate content optimized for advertising placement rather than user value.
The research reveals significant consumer skepticism toward artificial content. According to DoubleVerify’s data, “83% think AI-generated content should be legally required to carry a label, highlighting a strong demand for transparency.”
This consumer sentiment creates brand safety concerns for advertisers whose messages appear alongside potentially deceptive content. The report raises critical questions including whether AI-generated recipe content aligns with brand standards and whether these sites engage real consumers or optimize primarily for advertising revenue.
Recipe websites already face challenges with high advertising clutter, creating poor user experiences that become “particularly relevant given that recipe websites are already known for high ad clutter.” When combined with low-quality AI-generated content, these factors “raise legitimate concerns” about advertising effectiveness and brand association.
The proliferation of AI-generated recipe sites creates challenges for the broader digital advertising ecosystem. As PPC Land previously reported, advertising verification companies classify AI-generated “slop sites” as critical threats to campaign effectiveness, with quality inventory delivering 91% higher conversion rates.
DoubleVerify’s analysis aligns with industry trends where artificial intelligence transforms content creation at unprecedented scale. The Interactive Advertising Bureau reported that 86% of buyers currently use or plan to implement generative AI for creative development, with projections indicating AI will account for 40% of all advertisements by 2026.
However, the recipe site phenomenon represents a different challenge: sites using AI to generate content specifically designed to capture advertising dollars rather than provide authentic value. This distinction becomes crucial as Meta and other platforms simultaneously develop AI creative tools while managing content quality concerns.
DoubleVerify employs multiple detection methods to identify AI-generated content across recipe sites. The company’s proprietary GenAI detection models analyze textual patterns while manual analysis examines image authenticity. Third-party tools like Copyleaks provide additional verification for suspicious content.
The technical approach involves recreating potentially artificial images using Midjourney software with recipe text as prompts. When these recreations closely match original site images, it suggests artificial generation rather than authentic food photography.
Author profile analysis reveals another detection method. The research identified multiple instances where recipe sites use AI-generated headshots for fictional authors. In one case, an author image appeared simultaneously on both a recipe site and an unrelated Russian call center company website, indicating stock or artificial imagery rather than authentic representation.
The connection between platform monetization programs and AI-generated content creates complex ecosystem dynamics. As PPC Land reported analysis shows, Meta’s Creator Bonus Program pays creators for AI-generated content while the company develops competing AI systems for advertisers.
This pattern extends beyond social media to recipe websites where advertising revenue drives content creation strategies. Sites can quickly generate multiple articles daily using AI tools, maximizing advertising inventory without proportional increases in production costs.
The economic incentives favor automated content generation over authentic recipe development. Traditional recipe creation requires testing, photography, and editorial oversight, while AI-generated alternatives can produce hundreds of articles with minimal human intervention.
The report recommends advertisers engage in transparent discussions with demand-side platforms and supply-side platforms about AI content management. Key questions include how these platforms identify and assess AI-generated content across their inventory and what controls prevent ad placements on low-quality content farms.
DoubleVerify suggests advertisers evaluate whether platforms differentiate “between AI-assisted editorial content and fully AI-generated sites with little to no human oversight.” This distinction becomes crucial as legitimate publishers adopt AI tools for efficiency while maintaining editorial standards.
Brand suitability considerations extend beyond basic content safety to include authenticity and user value. As DoubleVerify’s technology advances demonstrate through successful implementations with Vodafone, sophisticated AI classification engines can expand quality inventory access while maintaining rigorous content standards.
The verification company’s GenAI Low Quality website protection enables clients to avoid “extreme AI hallucination” content across recipe sites. This technology analyzes multiple content elements simultaneously to generate accurate assessments about authenticity and quality.
Machine learning algorithms adapt to emerging content patterns while maintaining consistency with established quality guidelines. The system processes textual content, imagery, author profiles, and site architecture to identify potentially problematic inventory.
Detection capabilities extend beyond individual content pieces to analyze site-wide patterns including template usage, editorial inconsistencies, and author identity duplication. These comprehensive assessments help advertisers avoid inventory that prioritizes revenue generation over user value.
The recipe website phenomenon reflects broader changes in digital content economics. Traditional recipe development requires ingredient testing, photography, and user feedback cycles. AI-generated alternatives eliminate these requirements while maintaining superficial appeal for search engine optimization and advertising placement.
Content creation velocity increases dramatically with artificial intelligence tools. Where human recipe developers might produce several articles weekly, AI systems can generate dozens daily across multiple sites. This scale advantage creates competitive pressure on authentic publishers who maintain traditional quality standards.
Search engine algorithms currently struggle to differentiate between authentic and artificial recipe content, particularly when AI-generated material includes plausible ingredients and cooking instructions. This creates opportunities for automated content farms to capture organic traffic and advertising revenue.
The research highlights significant gaps between AI content generation capabilities and consumer protection measures. While 83% of consumers believe AI-generated content should carry mandatory labels, no systematic labeling requirements exist for recipe websites or similar content categories.
Detection technologies remain primarily accessible to advertising verification companies and major platforms rather than individual consumers. This asymmetry enables AI-generated content to reach audiences without clear identification of its artificial nature.
Regulatory frameworks have not yet addressed AI-generated content in advertising contexts, particularly for sites that appear to provide informational value while primarily serving advertising objectives. The recipe site model exploits this regulatory gap by combining seemingly useful content with aggressive monetization strategies.
As AI content generation tools become more sophisticated and accessible, the recipe website model may expand to other content categories with similar characteristics: evergreen topics, high advertising tolerance, and strong search demand. Travel recommendations, home improvement guides, and health information represent potential areas for similar automated content operations.
The phenomenon challenges traditional assumptions about content authenticity in programmatic advertising. Advertisers must develop new evaluation criteria that consider not just brand safety but content authenticity and user value delivery.
Platform responses to AI-generated content farms will likely influence broader content ecosystem development. Whether major advertising platforms choose to restrict, label, or actively promote artificial content will shape publisher strategies and consumer expectations across digital media.
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AI-generated content: Artificial intelligence systems create textual and visual materials without human authorship, using machine learning algorithms trained on existing data patterns. In the recipe website context, this encompasses automatically generated cooking instructions, ingredient lists, food photography, and author profiles designed to appear authentic while requiring minimal human oversight. The technology enables rapid content production at scale, allowing single operators to maintain multiple websites with hundreds of articles, fundamentally altering traditional publishing economics where human expertise and testing previously determined content quality and authenticity.
Brand suitability: The practice of ensuring advertisements appear alongside content that aligns with advertiser values, messaging standards, and target audience expectations beyond basic safety considerations. Unlike brand safety which focuses on avoiding overtly harmful material, brand suitability encompasses nuanced evaluation of content authenticity, editorial quality, user value, and contextual appropriateness. For recipe websites using AI-generated content, brand suitability concerns arise when advertisers question whether artificial food imagery and automated cooking instructions maintain sufficient quality standards to support their brand reputation and marketing objectives.
Programmatic advertising: Automated buying and selling of digital advertising inventory through real-time bidding systems that connect advertisers with publisher websites without direct human negotiation. This technology-driven marketplace enables advertisers to purchase ad placements across thousands of websites simultaneously based on audience targeting criteria and performance optimization algorithms. Recipe websites exploit programmatic advertising by creating content specifically designed to attract automated bidding systems, generating revenue through advertising placement rather than providing genuine culinary value to users visiting their sites.
GenAI detection models: Sophisticated machine learning systems developed by advertising verification companies to identify artificially generated content across digital properties. These proprietary technologies analyze textual patterns, linguistic structures, image characteristics, and authorship indicators to distinguish between human-created and AI-generated materials. DoubleVerify’s detection capabilities combine automated analysis with manual verification processes, enabling advertisers to avoid inventory that relies heavily on artificial content while maintaining access to authentic publisher environments that support genuine user engagement and brand association.
Content authenticity: The verification that published materials represent genuine human expertise, real experiences, and accurate information rather than artificially generated alternatives designed primarily for search engine optimization or advertising revenue. In recipe contexts, authenticity encompasses actual food preparation, genuine photography of prepared dishes, legitimate author credentials, and editorial oversight that ensures accuracy and user value. Consumer research indicates strong preferences for authentic content, with 87% considering image authenticity important and 83% supporting mandatory labeling requirements for AI-generated materials.
Advertising revenue optimization: Strategic approaches websites employ to maximize income from advertising placements through content creation, site architecture, and user experience design decisions. Recipe websites using AI-generated content optimize for advertising revenue by producing high volumes of evergreen content that attracts search traffic, implementing aggressive ad placement strategies, and minimizing production costs through automated content generation. This optimization often conflicts with user experience and content quality, creating challenges for advertisers seeking to associate their brands with valuable, authentic publisher environments.
Made-for-advertising sites: Digital properties created specifically to generate advertising revenue rather than provide genuine value to users, characterized by high ad-to-content ratios, templated designs, and content optimized for search traffic rather than user engagement. These sites exploit programmatic advertising systems by creating the appearance of legitimate publishers while prioritizing revenue generation over editorial quality or user experience. Recipe websites represent a sophisticated evolution of this model, using AI-generated content to create seemingly valuable culinary information while maintaining primary focus on advertising monetization rather than authentic recipe development.
Quality inventory: Premium advertising placements on websites that maintain high editorial standards, authentic content creation, genuine user engagement, and brand-suitable environments for advertiser messaging. Quality inventory delivers superior campaign performance, with research indicating 91% higher conversion rates compared to low-quality alternatives, while supporting positive brand association and consumer trust. Advertising verification companies help distinguish quality inventory from AI-generated content farms, enabling advertisers to invest in publisher relationships that deliver both performance outcomes and brand reputation protection.
Consumer demand transparency: The growing expectation among internet users for clear identification of artificially generated content, automated systems, and algorithmic processes that influence their online experiences. Research indicates 83% of consumers support mandatory labeling requirements for AI-generated content, reflecting concerns about authenticity, trust, and informed decision-making in digital environments. This transparency demand creates challenges for websites using AI-generated recipe content without disclosure, particularly as detection technologies enable consumers and advertisers to identify artificial materials that may appear deceptively authentic.
Advertising verification: Professional services that analyze digital advertising environments to ensure brand safety, content quality, viewability, and fraud protection across programmatic advertising ecosystems. Companies like DoubleVerify and Integral Ad Science employ advanced technologies including machine learning, computer vision, and natural language processing to evaluate publisher inventory and protect advertiser investments from low-quality or inappropriate placements. Verification services become increasingly critical as AI-generated content proliferates, requiring sophisticated detection capabilities to distinguish between authentic publishers and automated content farms designed primarily for advertising arbitrage.
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Who: DoubleVerify, a digital advertising verification company, examined AI-generated recipe websites alongside their impact on advertisers, consumers, and the broader programmatic advertising ecosystem.
What: The analysis identified widespread use of artificial intelligence tools to create recipe websites featuring AI-generated content, imagery, and author profiles designed primarily to capture advertising revenue rather than provide authentic culinary value to users.
When: DoubleVerify released the inaugural DEEP DIVES report on July 30, 2025, analyzing current trends in AI-generated content across recipe websites that have emerged as the online recipe market grows more than 15% annually.
Where: The phenomenon affects recipe websites operating globally, with specific examples including InsanelyGoodRecipes.com (3 million monthly visits), Quick Recipes, and MarketGrow (4 million monthly visits) that demonstrate various AI content strategies.
Why: Economic incentives drive AI-generated recipe site creation because these sites can support high advertising density while maintaining brand suitability, generate evergreen content without constant updates, and produce multiple articles daily with minimal human oversight compared to authentic recipe development.

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Effective SEO strategies are instrumental for financial planners who wish to capture the attention of high-quality leads actively seeking their expertise. The process starts with keyword optimization which involves meticulous research and integration of terms and phrases that potential clients are likely to use when searching for financial advice. This ensures that a financial planner’s website ranks prominently in search engine results, thereby increasing the likelihood of attracting interested parties. Collectively, SEO strategies enhance the digital footprint of financial planners, bolstering their credibility and making them more accessible to individuals in need of financial guidance.
SmartAsset’s Advisor Marketing Platform can help you add new clients at your desired pace. Sign up for a free demo today.
Keyword research is a strategic approach that can significantly influence your online presence and client acquisition. For financial planners, understanding and implementing keyword research is essential to connect with the right audience. At its core, it involves identifying the terms and phrases your potential clients are using to find services like yours. This aims to get you into the mind of your audience, and understand their needs and the language they use to express those needs.

Understanding search intent is an important part of keyword research. It’s about discerning whether a potential client is seeking information, contemplating a purchase or in need of a specific service. This understanding aligns with different stages of the customer journey. For example, someone searching for “what is financial planning?” is likely at an earlier stage of the journey compared with another searching for “financial planning services near me.”

To aid in your keyword research, tools such as Google Keyword Planner, SEMrush, Ahrefs and Moz Keyword Explorer can be useful. They provide insights into keyword popularity and competitiveness, helping you make more informed decisions. However, it’s important to note that this strategy does not guarantee success. While targeting specific keywords can improve the chances of increased visibility and client acquisition, it’s not a definitive outcome.
Creating content that resonates with an audience in the financial planning industry can help you build trust and expertise. For financial planners, this could mean providing comprehensive market analyses that offer insights into current trends and investment opportunities.
Such content not only educates clients but also showcases the planner’s depth of knowledge and ability to interpret complex financial data. Furthermore, crafting investment strategies that cater to different risk profiles demonstrates an understanding of individual client needs, from the conservative saver to the aggressive investor. Keeping up with regular updates on regulatory changes is also important, as they help clients navigate compliance and reinforce the planner’s role as a trusted advisor.

Content optimization is just as important after your content has existed on your site for a while. This strategy aims to improve or maintain your rank on search engine results pages (SERPs), thereby driving more traffic and fostering potential client relationships.
For financial planners, acquiring authoritative backlinks can lead to increased traffic and potential client engagement. Search engines like Google use backlinks as indicators of content quality. A website with many high-quality backlinks is often seen as more authoritative and trustworthy. This is because backlinks from reputable sites act as a vote of confidence in your content.
To acquire quality backlinks, financial planners should consider several strategies. Guest blogging on reputable financial blogs and forums or partnerships with industry influencers, and active participation in online financial communities can yield valuable backlinks.
Meta descriptions serve as brief summaries of web page content that appear in search engine results. They play a pivotal role in influencing click-through rates (CTRs), which can significantly affect the amount of traffic a financial planner’s website receives. A compelling meta description can be the deciding factor in whether a user visits a website or opts for a competitor’s. Therefore, the crafting of meta descriptions is not a task to be taken lightly, as it can directly impact lead generation and conversion rates for financial planners.

When crafting effective meta descriptions, financial planners should adhere to best practices to ensure their content is both compelling and keyword-rich. Meta descriptions should be concise, typically between 150-160 characters, and should accurately summarize the page content while incorporating relevant keywords. They must also provide a clear value proposition to entice users to click through.
Website speed is a significant factor in SEO, with Google confirming that faster websites tend to receive higher search engine rankings. Financial planners aiming to optimize their online presence must prioritize website performance. Techniques that are particularly effective for financial planners’ websites include optimizing images, leveraging browser caching, and minimizing HTTP requests. A fast-loading website is more likely to retain visitors, reduce bounce rates, and ultimately, rank better in search results.

In addition to speed, website security is just as important in SEO and user trust. Search engines prefer secure sites, and users are more likely to engage with websites that protect their sensitive information. Financial planners’ websites, which often handle confidential financial data, are prime targets for cyber threats such as phishing attacks and data breaches. To combat these threats and improve their Google ranking, financial planners should implement SSL certificates to encrypt data transmission and adhere to security best practices.
Your SEO strategy can help you gain visibility and establish credibility with potential clients. Keyword research, quality content, optimization and backlinks can help your website rank in searches, while establishing your expertise in the financial space. Though you should keep in mind that SEO does not guarantee results, and it requires ongoing updates to maintain and improve the searchability of your website.
Photo credit: ©iStock.com/Delmaine Donson, ©iStock.com/m-imagephotography, ©iStock.com/AndreyPopov
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Robots.txt and SEO: What you need to know in 2025  Search Engine Land
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HOZIO, Inc., a small SEO Company NYC and Long Island-based SEO and other digital marketing service provider, has been identified among the topmost SEO companies in NYC in the year 2025. Providing the companies with a mix of local understanding, AI-enhanced content planning, and ROI-oriented campaigns, HOZIO keeps promoting the visibility of clients and facilitating their business development in the territory of NYC and the United States as a whole.
HOZIO has developed into an agency with over 550 small businesses in the United States since starting the operation process in 2009, resulting in the revenue generated by the company of about 11.9 million dollars in 2024, supported by 62 full-service specialists. The company is based in the city of New York at 405 Lexington Avenue, in Manhattan, and they also have an office in Holbrook, NY.
Tailored SEO and Local Mastery for NYC Businesses
Where other firms have strived to compete, HOZIO is the only company in the saturated New York market that provides customized strategies depending on neighborhoods – whether it is Midtown Manhattan, Queens, or Brooklyn. Key services are Google Business Profile optimization, hyper-local targeting in keywords, citation consistency, reputation management, and responsive website performance, all geared to make the NYC businesses appear where they matter most.
With new post-pandemic search behavior increasingly mobile and local, two practices that HOZIO is focusing on to make sure web pages are relevant in new search contexts include schema markup and the use of FAQs and AI-friendly content structure.
AI‑Enhanced SEO That Delivers ROI, Not Just Rankings
Since effective sustainable visibility requires more than keyword stacking, HOZIO is already at the forefront of integrating AI-driven SEO strategies. They do it by creating search-optimized content and content that is accessible to AI assistants and optimized to search algorithms, structured data, conversational formats, and performance tracking that is not limited to ranking, such as calls, leads, and conversion behavior.
Compared to the bigger corporations that can provide one-size-fits-all campaigns, HOZIO is still a hands-on boutique that does not have long-term contracts. Clients are charged on a month-to-month basis and are only billed when real results are produced, which is attributed to fully disclosed reporting and committed account managers
Compelling Client Success Stories That Prove the Model
The focus of HOZIO on measurable results is shown through its client results. Service businesses like plumbing, air duct cleaning, and local healthcare are good examples of the types of businesses that receive a significant jump in phone leads with many ranking numbers of times a multiple keywords in the top position. One of the case studies presented clients who received more than 20 calls daily, maintained an average 50% reduction in advertisement spending, and continued increasing their revenues, permitting the development of fleets and establishing numerous new offices.
The chart-topper ranks and lead rush of clients, such as Chimney Restoration and Dragon RTC, are examples of how HOZIO scaled down local businesses in a matter of months.
Why HOZIO Is the SEO Company NYC Choice for 2025
HOZIO has gained the reputation of a reliable partner because of the over 300 client reviews on such sites as Yelp and LinkedIn, with a rating of about 4.8-4.9. The origin of the agency in mortgage marketing and websites has developed into extensive knowledge in the regions, knowing how the slightest differences between the neighborhoods and industries in the boroughs.
HOZIO reduces the likelihood of guesswork by capitalizing on data-driven decisions fueled by more than 17 different analytics tools to guarantee that campaigns are constantly improving and have a measurable conversion.
Next Steps: Building Momentum with HOZIO
Companies that want to enhance their search ranks and lead generation can contact them to request a free, no-obligation audit and consultation of their websites. HOZIO provides tailored roadmaps of strategies that entail technical SEO optimization, Google My Business amplification, authoring content, and monitoring performance.
The location-based service businesses, i.e., plumbers, law firms, and healthcare providers, can tap into the HOZIO NYC know-how to acquire local presence and elevate their visibility to other locations or counties.
About HOZIO, Inc.
HOZIO, Inc. is a New York City and Holbrook, NY based full-service digital marketing agency founded by Steven Orandello and John Bosco in 2009. The company has more than 10 years of expertise, a client portfolio of more than 550 businesses, and a record of high revenue, which is why it has specialisations in result-based, ethical SEO, web design, PPC advertising, Google Business Profile optimisation, and others. The company does not engage in any long term contracts instead, it prefers openness, elasticity, and success consistency with its clients.
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Sheryl Estrada is a senior writer at Fortune, where she covers the corporate finance industry, Wall Street, and corporate leadership. She also authors CFO Daily.
Good morning. AI is accelerating a rethink of the finance function.
Earlier this year, I spoke with Michael Schrage, a research fellow at MIT Sloan’s Initiative on the Digital Economy, about his prediction that AI will eventually transform the CFO role into that of an AI-powered chief capital officer.
Now, as generative AI and AI agent use become more prolific, Schrage and I reconnected to discuss a tool that’s fast gaining traction in the enterprise: prompt-a-thons. These are structured, sprint-based sessions for developing prompts for large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT and Gemini. Schrage has led more than 100 of these since 2023, including in executive education, MBA classes, and business settings. “Prompt-a-thons aren’t just workshops; they’re mirrors,” he said. “They reflect not only what people want AI to do—but how they think, what they value, and what they overlook.”
In 60–90-minute sprints, small cross-functional teams design, test, and iterate prompts to improve KPIs, clarify workflows, and challenge assumptions. According to Schrage, most participants discover their initial thinking is “flawed, shallow, or stuck in spreadsheet autopilot.” The prompt-a-thon process reframes prompting as a high-impact diagnostic and design discipline—engineered for fast, actionable insight. “It’s not just about using AI more effectively—it’s about thinking and collaborating more intelligently with it,” he said.
For many finance leaders, the instinct is to upskill people on AI. Schrage suggests flipping the frame: “Let’s prompt your cost centers and forecast failures until something breaks—and gets better.” He points to financial planning and analysis (FP&A) as a particularly powerful starting point. Prompt-a-thons here often surface hidden data, unchallenged assumptions, and areas of organizational ambiguity or resistance. “Prompt-a-thons aren’t about rainbows and unicorns,” he added. “But every so often, one shows up—usually disguised as a counterintuitive insight.”

Why emphasize small teams or collaborative prompting? “A prompt is a hypothesis about how the world works—and the world pushes back,” Schrage explained. “Solo prompting explores. But team prompting evolves and that’s where real learning happens.” Schrage compares the approach to sports analytics: “You’re not just trying to win once. You’re trying to build the kind of team that keeps winning.”
Though he would never position himself as a finance expert, Schrage offers three recurring lessons learned from finance-driven prompt-a-thons:
—Prompts are scaffolds, not shortcuts. Great prompts don’t replace critical thinking—they sharpen and amplify it. One-shot prompts are useful; iterative ones are transformative.
—Avoid trying to automate what you don’t understand. The danger isn’t that LLMs get things wrong—it’s that they confidently reinforce flawed assumptions baked into broken processes.
—Look beyond cost-cutting. Most finance prompts chase efficiencies. The best ones expose strategic blind spots and generate new hypotheses worth testing.

Schrage’s key takeaway is that the quality of a team’s prompts reveals the quality of its decision culture. “People don’t just learn how to prompt; they learn what their organization won’t let them ask,” he said. “That’s when everything changes.”
Prompt-a-thons expose what firms know, want to know, and avoid, he said. By closing these gaps, teams not only boost AI fluency—they get better at asking and answering the questions that matter, Schrage said.
Sheryl Estrada
sheryl.estrada@fortune.com

Pilar López was appointed CFO designate of Vodafone Group PLC (Nasdaq: VOD), effective Oct. 1. López will succeed Luka Mucic who previously announced he decided to leave Vodafone. López’s formal appointment will begin on Dec. 1, following Mucic’s departure from Vodafone on Nov. 30. López previously held several positions at Microsoft. She also spent 16 years at Telefónica.
Nick Deldon was named CFO of global manufacturer H&V. Before joining H&V, Deldon served as CFO at Home Market Foods. He was also CFO at the Wellness Pet Company, where he was pivotal in growing the company into a $500 million global business.

The 2025 edition of the UBS Global Wealth Report, which analyzed individual wealth across 56 markets, finds that U.S. wealth grew quickly last year. The U.S. created more than 379,000 new millionaires in 2024—over 1,000 each day—accounting for more than half of all new millionaires worldwide. This brings the total U.S. millionaire population to 23.8 million, or about 40% of the global total, according to the report.
This surge was fueled by robust gains in the S&P 500 and Nasdaq, which rose over 23% and nearly 29%, respectively. Wealth growth was tilted strongly toward North America, propelled by a stable U.S. dollar and upbeat financial markets, according to UBS analysts. The U.S., mainland China, and France had the highest number of millionaires, with the U.S. accounting for almost 40% of global millionaires.
The report also notes the rise of “everyday millionaires” (those with $1–5 million in assets). Their numbers have more than quadrupled since 2000, reaching around 52 million globally by the end of 2024.
“Wealth is not just an economic measure—it’s a social and political force,” Paul Donovan, chief economist at UBS Global Wealth Management, said in a statement. “As we navigate the fourth industrial revolution and rising public debt, the way wealth is distributed and transferred will shape opportunity, policy, and progress.”
“Oil prices could spike 10% after the U.S. attack on Iran—‘But don’t be fooled, this may not last’” is a new Fortune report by Jason Ma.

From the report: “The U.S. bombing of Iran’s top nuclear facilities will jolt energy markets as investors brace for the fallout across the region as well as expected retaliation from Tehran. Analytics firm Kpler predicted crude prices should soar as much as 10%, but the spike may not last. That’s because OPEC+ is expected to boost oil output.”
“No one, not even in the United States, will be happy if there’s a monopoly. We don’t believe it will be a winner-takes-all market.” 
—VW Group executive Sascha Meyer told Fortune in an interview regarding autonomous vehicles. The German carmaker is preparing to enter the market for autonomous ride-hailing services next year with its Volkswagen ID. If Waymo and Tesla still retain their lead by the time VW is ready, Meyer believes communities will demand some degree of healthy competition among autonomous ride-hailing providers.

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