Artificial intelligence in accountancy and finance CA Today

Artificial intelligence (AI) has been implemented in multiple industries, from stock trading to hospitals, and Google has singled it out as the next big thing. As Uschi Schreiber, Chair of the Global Accounts Committee at EY, wrote earlier this year: "Leaders in every industry are responding to shifts that would have seemed unimaginable even a few years ago. "Artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics are fundamentally reinventing the workforce." The finance sector, given its heavy reliance on mass amounts of numbers and data, is a prime candidate for the automation offered by intelligent learning systems. But while this might mean great things for efficiency and digital transformation, many have raised concerns about robots taking the place of human employees. The driving motivations behind the installation of AI in business processes appear to be the greater speed, accuracy and volume capability of computers when compared to their existing human counterparts. Many businesses are already using robotic process automation systems to crunch numbers and sift data on a daily basis. For example, Kensho is an intelligent computer system widely used by stock traders and investors to automatically analyse portfolio performance and predict market changes. The software is described as'the world's first computational knowledge engine for the financial industry'. It claims to address Wall Street's greatest challenge – automating and improving on previously human-intensive knowledge work to keep up with the split-second changeability of stock. Kensho's founder, Daniel Nadler, told the New York Times Magazine: ''People always tell me, 'I used to spend two out of five days a week doing this sort of thing,' or'I used to have a guy whose job it was to do nothing other than this one thing'.'' Even the breaking down and translating of numerical data into colloquial terms no longer requires the input of a human operator, thanks to systems that learn with use to mimic personable patterns. UK-based Arria has developed natural language generation software (NLG) that is being used across a wide range of industries to humanise and simplify the analysis of data heavy reports. Arria's Chief Technology Officer Robert Dale, said: "By emulating human behaviour in software, you get technology that can carry out tasks that are more than just straightforward number crunching, with the machine exhibiting real intelligence.