A ‘varied and fragmented’ profession: using AI as an accountant

The over 150 different small, mundane and low-value tasks that accountants are required to do every week should be automated so that more time can be spent on the activities that AI “cannot touch”, says Mark Adams, co-founder of Arāya Labs, and “Hollywood’s AI Insider”.

Speaking to Accountants Daily, Adams urged practitioners to “move straight to acceptance” that these types of tasks will soon all be automated.

“At first this feels a little bit scary, but when you accept it you’ll see that AI is capable of automating some of those tasks but cannot automate the job itself,” Adams said.

“When an accountant breaks down and audits the activity they do in a single week, they’ll probably notice that the job of being an accountant is actually much more varied and fragmented than it first appears.”

With the potential for mundane tasks to be automated, Adams said the skill set qualified accountants possess will never be ceded to a layman with access to AI.

“There will doubtlessly be many high-value, big game hunting activities that AI cannot touch, and that is where the value creation will flow to from now on,” Adams said.

“It is not true to say that someone like myself, who has absolutely no expertise in accounting, would be as effective at deploying it as an accountant who has vast experience in this very difficult and nuanced area of practice.”

For small accounting firms, Adams said leaders should not try to get their teams to compete with AI in things the tool is highly capable of doing.

“Instead, use it to escape them and focus your resources on true human value creation.”

“[Accountants’] expert judgment itself becomes more valuable than ever because only they can apply their expertise to the output.

“The client is paying for that expertise either way, so if an accountant can get to that advice faster and cheaper, it’s great news for the accountant as they can serve more clients at a higher standard than ever before.”

The golden age of professional services

Adams likened AI to a democratised source of power, capable of releasing practitioners from some financial, energetic and time-based burdens.

He said that the technology puts the accounting industry on a strong footing.

“The brilliant news is that the industry will be able to handle a far higher caseload and deploy much more time to the things that clients really pay them for,” Adams said.

“In order for the industry to capture the new value that’s going to emerge in this era, they will have to move from a mindset of comparison to a mindset of conviction.”

“This puts the industry in a very powerful position, because we are now able to cheapen and shorten the process that leads to our advice whilst taking more time and care than ever on the advice itself, both in terms of the judgment that we make and the method and form of its delivery. In my opinion, we are entering the golden age of professional services.”