Australian accounting firms rolling out AI at pace, survey finds

A recent global survey by IDC, sponsored by Caseware, found that 68 per cent of Australian accounting firms had already embedded or piloted AI, placing them slightly ahead of the global average of 66 per cent.

The survey, dubbed 'The Future of Audit and Accounting in the AI Era', revealed that Australian accounting and audit firms were quickly embedding AI into their core workflows, but still faced barriers and uncertainties to implementation.

“AI is no longer a future concept for the profession. It is already embedded in how work gets done,” said David Marquis, chief executive officer at Caseware.

“What we’re seeing in Australia is a market that is embracing that shift but doing so with the level of rigour and professional oversight that defines audit and assurance.”

Looking ahead, 50 per cent of Australian firms planned to expand their use of AI over the next two years, compared to the global average of 59 per cent. According to Caseware, this indicated that the market was moving towards a deployment phase rather than early stage planning, with firms now scaling with care.

The key barriers to AI adoption reported by Australian firms included a lack of technical talent (28 per cent), cost of implementation (26 per cent) and regulatory uncertainty (23 per cent).

This differed from global trends, where costs were the largest concern (34 per cent), followed by talent (30 per cent) and then regulation (17 per cent).

Australian respondents were also slightly less concerned about the risk of algorithmic bias in areas such as risk assessment and fraud detection, with 67 per cent believing it was a moderate, very or extremely significant risk, compared to 79 per cent globally.

In the audit space, IDC’s survey found that most leaders saw AI as a catalyst for audit quality, but many were concerned about the erosion of professional judgement and trust.

Over half (53 per cent) of respondents agreed that AI tools could enhance audit quality, while 66 per cent had embedded AI in their accounting and audit strategy, but 88 per cent agreed that AI tools could risk undermining professional judgement.

The survey also found that a majority (66 per cent) of auditors believed there was an urgent need for a globally harmonised AI framework to combat growing regulatory complexity.

Over half of practitioners (52 per cent) were willing to trade some level of AI performance for stronger security and safety measures, roughly in line with the global average of 55 per cent.

Caseware said this reinforced a consistent theme of measured, trust-first adoption of AI among accounting firms.