There’s a lot of buzz about artificial intelligence in the accounting profession, and AI is taking centre stage in shaping how we work.
From recruitment shifts to changing skill sets, recent research on AI sheds light on what’s next for the profession. As the demand for new skills increases, we also invite you to let your voice be heard in the Future-Ready Finance: Tech, Productivity, and Skills Survey. Your input will help shape the tools and resources we provide, so your team can grow and succeed through change.
According to a report by Ipsos UK, commissioned by Chartered Accountants Worldwide, 85% of accountants surveyed expressed a willingness to use AI.
The report delves into opinions and experiences surrounding the impact of AI on the profession, highlighting a strong enthusiasm for AI adoption. This attitude may be driven by the belief that AI will significantly transform jobs within the next five years, a sentiment shared by 80% of respondents.
According to the research, the use of AI is at present more likely to be driven by individual proactivity rather than organisational change. Finance teams are still in the early stages of exploring the more technical applications of AI.
Lack of clarity on an adoption strategy, as well as insufficient ethical and regulatory guidance, are identified as barriers to AI implementation.
Recruitment shifts underscore changing skills demands
The Big 4 accountancy firms are scaling back their graduate recruitment programmes. Some link this shift in recruitment to a new strategy where AI will take over entry-level tasks in accounting and finance.
Time will reveal how these changes will unfold and shape the future of work in the profession. Still, this change in recruitment raises questions about new workflows and coordination, the future talent pipeline, productivity, employee motivation, and skills.
A key deliverable is preserving mentorship, career growth, and professional judgment while driving cost savings and efficiency — although challenges are inevitable, success depends on this balance.
Beyond hype: AI as transformative, but normal, technology
In their latest research, Arvind Narayanan, professor of computer science at Princeton University and director of the Center for Information Technology Policy, and Sayash Kapoor, CS Ph.D. candidate at Princeton University and senior fellow at Mozilla, discuss ‘AI as Normal Technology’.
Offering an interesting alternative to the concept of AI as a potential superintelligence, the researchers steer clear of both utopian and dystopian visions of AI’s future. Instead, they explore the relationship between technology and society. According to Narayanan and Kapoor, AI is transformative but fundamentally similar to past general-purpose technologies like electricity or the internet.
This means that the transformative economic and societal impacts of AI will be gradual; it will likely take decades to fully integrate AI into our lives. AI will need to learn from experience — something humans have been doing for a long time, while machines require vast amounts of data (which humans provide) to replicate similar learning.
Ultimately, AI is a tool under human control, not an autonomous or superintelligent entity. Societal integration of AI will be shaped by the pace of institutions, adoption patterns, and human decisions — not by AI itself.
The call to action for organisations is to rethink jobs and see them not simply as a collection of tasks, but as activities around which we apply intuition, flexibility, real-world skills, and tacit knowledge to such an extent that it is not, or cannot, be easily documented.
The transformation is underway; remaining engaged and adaptable is critical.
The profession widely acknowledges the need to sharpen critical thinking, data security, AI ethics, and advisory skills. Additionally, there's a growing recognition that accountants must now embrace creativity alongside their data analytics competencies. These are indeed interesting times to be an accounting and finance professional.
The Future-Ready Finance Survey: Shaping resources for finance professionals
Being future-ready means that you actively engage in the changes happening across the profession. As job roles shift and expectations develop, it's important we hear directly from finance professionals about how you are adapting.
The Future-Ready Finance: Tech, Productivity, and Skills Survey seeks to explore the challenges you are facing when it comes to tech and developing the necessary skills. Your survey responses will guide the development of resources that respond to the real-world challenges you face, ensuring that the profession is prepared for what's next.
Want to learn more about AI? Check out our latest resource, AI Demystified: A Glossary of Essential Terms, your go-to guide to become fluent in the language of AI.