Artificial intelligence needs more intelligence

Artificial intelligence promises a revolution in the way we work, and already there is a growing number of software solutions marketed to accountants touting its use. Almost daily, it seems, companies announce new AI products or capabilities for a wide range of applications, from tax management to risk analysis to business intelligence and more. Yet the degree of attention received by these ostensibly AI-powered solutions over the years has led some observers in the accounting technology arena to wonder just how smart these products are, concerned there is more hype than sense in this area. This is especially the case when contrasting the current suite of products out there with what people generally imagine when they think of AI: machines that think and reason as we do, something that even computer scientists have yet to crack, let alone commercial software developers. Peter Scavuzzo, CEO of Marcum Technology, said there might be something like this in the future -- noting that the building blocks for this sort of thing, like natural language processing and machine learning, are becoming more common -- but he was skeptical of claims that we can get such things here in the present.