The Rise of Artificial Intelligence in Accounting Practice

Google estimate human-level AI will be reached by 2029, with 16% of employment positions in the US estimated to be lost to AI networks over the coming years. Gartner, the research company, have calculated that 33% of all occupations could be undertaken by robots by 2025, predominantly in logistics, finance, customer service, health care, and manufacturing. With such large numbers of jobs at stake, it's hard to ignore how the rise in AI will affect the accounting world and, specifically, accounting practices. Applications can handle data, produce reports and generate statements quicker and with more precision than a human, but does this indicate the end of the accounting profession? Many fear job losses, but to give a little context, many of the current in-demand-jobs (posts that technological and societal shifts brought rise to) had not been created ten years ago and the World Economic Forum estimates that 65% of children currently in primary school will hold positions that are yet to be imagined. The same fears of job losses were discussed in the mid-nineteenth century with the advent of the first industrial revolution - those fears quickly subsided - as we sit on the advent of the fourth industrial revolution similar fears are coming to the fore again.