ACCA’s Abdul Goffar explains why ex-chancellor Jeremy Hunt has got it wrong about AI coming for accountants’ jobs.
You might have read some pretty alarming media coverage last month of Jeremy Hunt claiming that AI is coming for your job. I’m here to reassure you that he’s wrong.
It’s true that AI and other cutting-edge technologies are shaking up the role of accountants – but we know AI technologies offer huge opportunities for accountants to build further on their central role in driving business success.
Advances in technology over time have freed accountants from more mundane tasks, and AI will supercharge this further. Accountancy is evolving into a pre-emptive profession that uses powerful machine-learning tools to predict and assess alternative future scenarios. Based on these scenarios, organisations can seize opportunities, manage risks and prepare for a range of possible outcomes.
What’s important for accountants, both existing and future, is to be adaptable – embracing new technology will drive efficiencies and help create new ways of doing business.
In fact, our Global Talent Trends 2024 survey revealed that the majority of respondents believed that AI will enable finance professionals to add more value in the future.
As we know, while AI at its core is good at collating relevant data and information at unprecedented speed, what it cannot replace is context, our human experience – our professional judgment and ethical considerations as accountants. Technology offers ‘content’; we humans bring ‘context’. When we pair these two components, the potential is truly endless.
The ethics factor
We know that it’s essential to have a good understanding of the technical aspects of AI, digital, technology and data. But a key consideration for accountants in this digital age is how to use data effectively and ethically. We have an abundance of data available to us which makes the traditional professional qualities of accountants, such as scepticism, judgement and an ethical mindset, more important than ever.
This requires a solid grounding of not just the technical aspects of data, digital and technology, but also to consider, for example, the source of the data, its reliability and any ethical concerns in reporting the data – to name just a few.
A future-focused qualification
All the changes and developments in this area mean there is strong demand from employers for new skills, and accountants need to upskill if they’re going to be successful – including in their current roles.
Advances in AI and other tech are providing accountants with exciting new career opportunities and choices, as well as adding to the sense of purpose that comes from being part of a forward-looking profession.
By listening closely to the needs of leading employers around the world, we understand their business needs and use their input to help shape our world-leading qualifications, ensuring that we create business-ready professionals. We also carry out our own cutting-edge research, bringing together perspectives from across the world. We work to demystify and broaden knowledge, showcasing how accountants can harness innovative tech and exploring the interesting, innovative and surprising ways in which we’re likely to use it.
This means that when it comes to our exams we present students with real-world question scenarios that reflect current influences on the profession, such as AI, data analytics and machine learning, and how they are being used by organisations.
As the profession and the careers within it evolve, so do the skills that professional accountants need. That’s why the ACCA qualification integrates technology, digital and data at all levels and includes AI, data analytics, cloud computing, fintech, machine learning and robotic process engineering.
Without doubt, AI will increasingly revolutionise the world of accountancy – bringing opportunities, risks and change. It will enable accountants to contribute much more effectively to analysis, interpretation, strategy- setting and decision-making. AI is also driving the development of new business models and better ways of doing things, and accountants have a central role in enabling this. Their focus on ethics means they also have an important role in ensuring that AI is used responsibly, and its risks are properly managed.
So don’t fear the future – let’s harness these new technologies and shape that future ourselves.
- Abdul Goffar, Director ACCA UK
