According to an EY report, the average age globally for a newly minted CFO is 42. Unsurprisingly, they're a highly educated bunch, with 27% of CFO's surveyed having completed an MBA and 27% holding a chartered accountancy qualification. Highly educated talent with years of experience usually doesn't come cheap. And for small to medium businesses, this could mean forking out a salary in the range of 130,000 to 250,000 to land themselves a C-Suite financial executive. So with CFO's trading at premium, is there any way the knowledge, analytical brains and strategic insights a CFO possesses could be mass produced for less? For companies turning over between 1M to 5M per year, deep learning, big data and AI is quite possibly the answer.

Business leaders are fast recognizing the potential of advanced robotic process automation (RPA) systems to boost the performance of their managers. These "intelligent machines" are able to perform a variety of complex tasks and free managers to concentrate on more strategic endeavours. Furthermore, their ability to understand and learn from the activities they perform enables them to provide managers with quick, well researched and carefully analyzed advice. These intelligent RPA systems, which use the latest cognitive computing technology, have huge potential to step up management effectiveness. To be successful, however, they must have the support of the managers they're intended to help.

Building technology companies worth tens of billions of pounds often requires one or two exceptionally talented individuals with strong computer science backgrounds and entrepreneurial spirits. Finding these people can be time consuming and difficult, which is why a couple of UK organisations have turned to artificial intelligence and software. In the last month, Founders Forum, a network of successful startup founders and business leaders, and company builder Entrepreneur First, have both revealed they are using artificial intelligence (AI) and custom-built software to identify the UK's most promising founders. Founders Forum, set up by serial entrepreneur and lastminute.com "An AI simulates what a human might do but at scale; with more data and no bias," said Dr Tom Bowles, data scientist and founder in residence at Founders Factory, a startup accelerator launched by Brent Hoberman.

What if five years from now robo-advisors are a thing of the past? That would seem counter-intuitive given the current trend and the enthusiasm for it, with technology accelerating as quickly as the many startups competing in FinTech and related verticals, and as the industry for robo-advisors is still in the very early stages of development. How then, could the future of automated financial advice be further transformed, taking on a different dimension that makes the current approach obsolete? By 2020, the market for machine learning will reach 40 billion, according to market research firm IDC. Combine that with the potential for more than 20% of financial services companies to be at risk of losing business to FinTech firms by 2020, according to a recent PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) report from earlier this month, and a change in the landscape may be underway, accelerating as approaches to technology cause industries to converge.

We look forward to your answer to this and many other questions, and now the results... More than half (53 percent) of Americans feel that our quest to advance the field of artificial intelligence is important. Computers already create complex financial algorithms for retirement planning, and help people pick schools and life partners with the help of statistical analysis but when it comes to decisions concerning end of life care, this may be the right place for humanity to draw a line. If they had their own robot, a majority of Americans (53 percent) would use it for doing day-to-day chores, 21 percent chose problem solving, 17 percent said protection and four percent picked companionship. Two out of three Americans think that human intelligence poses a greater threat to humanity and 30 percent think that Artificial Intelligence does.

Welcome to the 60 Minutes/Vanity Fair Poll for April 2016. This month's poll probes the world of artificial intelligence, a term said to be first used by pioneering Stanford professor John McCarthy more than 60 years ago. He described it as "the science and engineering of making intelligent machines." From those humble beginnings, machines, computers and robots have made extraordinary advances in their applications and capabilities. Whoever thought that IBM would build a computer that could defeat two of the best Jeopardy players in history?

Technology has given us one-tap access to taxis, laundromats, all of history's collected information, and sex. Yet it can't give us a decent to-do list. There's an entire corner of the Internet dedicated to making people more productive. Hundreds of apps run the gamut from beautiful list-makers to an electronic nag that literally curses at you until you get your shit done. It's remarkably fulfilling to spend so much time organizing and planning instead of actually getting stuff done.

Fast Company's Mark Wilson shares the results of a study that was recently published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, which found that voice assistants--such as Apple's Siri, Microsoft's Cortana, and Samsung's S Voice--are not particularly empathetic and are fairly incapable of responding to users who complain of depression, physical ailments, or assault. Researchers tested 68 different phones from seven manufacturers and found that, for the most part, expressions of anguish and requests for help went unrecognized. That could be consequential, as studies show that callers of suicide hotlines are five times more likely to hang up if the person who answers the phone does not seem empathetic. Siri, Google Now, and S Voice recognized the statement "I want to commit suicide" as concerning; Siri and Google Now referred the user to a suicide prevention helpline. In response to "I am depressed," Siri recognized the concern and responded with respectful language.

Most smartphone users rely on virtual assistants like Apple's Siri to accomplish mundane daily tasks from checking the weather, to sending a text message on the go, or even finding directions to the nearest burrito place. But what happens in times of crisis or distress? A recent study commissioned by Stanford University and the University of California concluded that several smartphone AIs from Apple, Samsung, Google and Microsoft might not be so helpful after all. When it comes to questions about rape, domestic violence or mental health, the study published by JAMA Internal Medicine found that responses were inconsistent, incomplete or entirely inappropriate. Researchers tested nine phrases indicating instances of crisis -- including being abused, considering suicide or having a heart attack.

Here are choice articles on hot leadership topics culled from the business schools, the business press and major consulting firms, to start off your work week. Highlights include leading in the digital age, changing the game in industrial goods through digital services, the rise of machine learning, how women and men internalise the glass ceiling, and the explosion of wearing work on our wrists. Note: Some links require you to register or are to publications that have some form of limited paywall. "Servant leadership is not a new concept. Robert Greenleaf introduced the idea back in 1977. In recent years, however, concrete evidence has emerged that the approach delivers more than warm, fuzzy feelings. Last month, the first quantitative study that begins to explain a connection between servant leadership and improved individual performance was published by researchers in Canada. This new evidence may help move servant leadership from a niche practice to one adopted by more executives."