More than one million Hongkongers are at risk of losing their jobs to artificial intelligence over the next two decades, according to a new study by a local think tank. The One Country Two Systems Research Institute on Tuesday unveiled research which estimates about 28 per cent of the city's 3.7 million jobs are vulnerable to automation. These workers, which include secretaries, accountants and auditors, face a 70 per cent chance of being substituted for machines before 2038, the pro-Beijing research unit said. But Hong Kong employees face a lower risk of encroachment from AI compared to their counterparts in other advanced economies such as the United States, Britain and Japan. The brighter forecast for the city was due to its economic structure, which included a smaller manufacturing sector, research officer Kristine Yang said.

There's some understandable concern these days about the possibility that increased use of artificial intelligence (AI) will lead to job losses amongst accounting and audit professionals. But Mike Baccala, PwC's US assurance innovation leader, predicts that while accounting and auditing jobs may change as AI use becomes more prevalent, those jobs won't go away. Baccala is co-author of a recent PwC report that predicts the effects that AI will have on the business environment. He said PwC already is working with AI in a few capacities in client engagements. The firm is using an AI platform to help nonaudit clients extract data from their lease agreements as they implement the US Financial Accounting Standards Board's new lease accounting standard.

There's some understandable concern these days about the possibility that increased use of artificial intelligence (AI) will lead to job losses among accounting and audit professionals. But Mike Baccala, PwC's U.S. assurance innovation leader, predicts that while accounting and auditing jobs may change as AI use becomes more prevalent, those jobs won't go away. Baccala is co-author of a recent PwC report that predicts the effects that AI will have on the business environment. He said PwC already is working with AI in a few capacities in client engagements. The firm is using an AI platform to help nonaudit clients extract data from their lease agreements as they implement the new FASB lease accounting standard.