Artificial Intelligence and The Future of Accounting

Artificial Intelligence has now moved out from a science fiction and Hollywood Movies, to a real concept which is being used and applied in various industries, from transportation and legal to advertising and pharma. In addition to minimizing error and exploration processes, AI also offers the benefit of real-time problem-solving in the most effective way possible. And you should know that AI is not only being implemented at the industry level but is being used by most of the people, in their day to day life. From Siri to Facebook Messenger, now most of the things are becoming a part of the AI and even accounting is not an exception to it.

Although the concept of AI has started penetrating most of the industries but when it comes to accounting, then we can consider the entry of AI in its early phase. Even if the accounting industry has welcomed huge waves of automation and technological advancement to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of their work but technology has not been able to replace the need of decision making and expert knowledge. Even the earlier version of intelligence system has shown us the importance of human knowledge and limitations of machines.

But many people consider AI as a replacement to human which has created a perception of job loss from the adoption of AI.  But this is not the ultimate truth. Artificial intelligence has been a hope for computer science from more than 60 years. With the concept becoming a part of your online activities, soon it will be woven into our daily task too. But this system does not replicate human intelligence as many experts will use the term AI to describe the current machine learning system. Although on a task-by-task basis, a machine produces far more accurate and fast output than humans.
But the above-mentioned reason doesn’t mean that the AI will completely wipe out the need of accountants. You should know that AI will obviously automate the process of repetitive bookkeeping or process driven tasks but it will also bring various new opportunities for accountants to improve their effectiveness and efficiency, provide better insight and deliver higher value to the business.

We can also consider the example of cloud computing in accounting. In the early phase of cloud accounting, it was considered as an alien technology and many professionals hesitated to move towards this new technology but look at the current trend of accounting. Most of the businesses are adopting cloud computing and it has become a new normal for most of the businesses. The same will happen with the AI and after some years, it will also become a new normal for all the businesses. And you should also know that the adoption of AI in accounting industry is happening at a much faster pace than cloud accounting.
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Now accountants have become more tech-savvy and are more open to adoption and challenges. Those days are gone when accountants were only related to huge piles of papers, nerds and boring job. Now accountants are technologically advanced people who add value to the business by becoming a major part of the decision-making process and the enhanced productivity of the firm. Therefore the adoption of AI will also be seamlessly done by the accounting industry and it will add more value to the output with enhanced accuracy.

Preeti

Preeti is a technical content writer who is currently associated with Cloudwalk. She spends most of the time of her day in the world of cloud computing and accounting software. Her vast experience in the field of cloud software and her love for IT has allowed her to become a major contributor on most of the knowledge based cloud platforms.