How can artificial intelligence bring new opportunities to mid-market accounting?

Maybe you've seen the humorous "I forced a bot…" meme where people purportedly feed thousands of hours of movie or TV show scripts to an automated computer program – and force it to independently spit out its own script that unnervingly stitches together plausible clichés and stereotyped phrases. In essence, that ability to read, detect patterns, and create new material is how artificial intelligence (AI) works. Fortunately, of course, we don't have server farms spewing out hundreds of Adam Sandler comedies each week (though it can feel like that sometimes). AI is the technology that's been "right around the corner"… for at least 30 years. Proponents and enthusiasts excitedly tell us that AI can defeat everything from chess opponents and traffic congestion to exotic diseases and financial fraudsters.