Power of AI: Transforming the

Accounting Landscape for

Sustainability
New Era New
Technology

Presented by Kathy Terdpaopong

Rangsit University, Thailand
 A
I proposed by John McCarthy in
•Artificial intelligence (AI) was originally
1955 during the Dartmouth summer research project (Müller & Bostrom,
2016)
•The original definition of which is the engineering and science to build
intelligent machines.
•Essentially, AI is committed to making machines think and act like
humans, carrying out deep learning and self learning.

Ref: Müller VC, Bostrom N. Future progress in artificial intelligence: A survey of expert opinion.
In Fundamental issues of artificial intelligence 2016 (pp. 555-572). Springer, Cham.
 How AI is changing the roles in
accountancy?

•Working methods and business models will also transform in what is

increasingly called the fourth industrial revolution. With this will come a change
in the traditional accountancy skills needed – whether you are an accountant in
practice or business, the changes that AI technologies are bringing to most roles will
be substantial.

Source: ICAEW (https://www.icaew.com/insights/features/2020/mar-2020/how-ai-is-changing-the-roles-in-accountancy)

 T H E APPLICATION OF AI IN
ACCOUNTING FIELD
• The AI-based application can carry out more advanced work and acts as a
better replacement for human labor.

• For example, in accounting work, there are many accounting tasks with
repetitive characteristics and high volume, which will cause a total waste
of staff time and an increase in the cost of enterprise labor.

• AI technology can automate these basic, repetitive processes to improve

work efficiency and understand financial risks based on big data analysis.
How AI is changing the roles in
accountancy?

• Organisationshave anticipated an accelerated shift in the division of existing

work tasks between humans and machines in the years to 2022, according to
the World Economic Forum’s The Future of Jobs Report 2018.
• An average of 71% of total task hours were performed by humans,

compared to 29% by machines.

• By 2022 this average is expected to have shifted, with humans carrying out

58% of task hours compared with machines doing 42%.

 How AI is changing the roles in
accountancy?
• By 2022, 62% of organisations’ information and data processing, and
their information search and transmission tasks, will be performed by
machines, compared to 46% in 2018.
• That evolution has already been gaining pace. Much of the repetitive
process-driven tasks are already being carried out increasingly by
machines within the profession.
 Accountants to be sustainable…

•First, accountants will need to understand at a basic level how AI works

and how to work with AI specialists. “This doesn’t mean accountants
need to become technology specialists themselves,” “They will, however,
need more technology knowledge and skills than has perhaps been
needed in the past to be intelligent and responsible users of the tech.”
Accountants to be sustainable…

• The second part of the skill shift, is slowly freeing up accountants to focus
more on advisory, analysis and business partnering, as AI deals with
more of the processing and transactional tasks.
• With these tasks removed for the most part, accountants can focus on
developing their soft skills such as emotional intelligence,
negotiation and persuasion skills, as well as sharpening their
broader business knowledge.
Accountants to be sustainable…

•The increased focus on advisory skills means that accountants

will often find themselves acting as the broker between technical
experts
and clients.
•
• One thing is for sure, “Humans will still need to interpret data
and make use of it in the context of their
business.”
 Challenges AI Bringing to Accounting ...
Financial Data Protection

• AItechnology introduces financial data security issues to the

accounting industry. During the process of applying AI technology to
accounting, most of the work is finished by computers through networks,
which is bound to have an impact on the security of financial data.
• Therefore, financial data protection is particularly important in
financial management, and it is necessary to take relevant measures to
promote financial data protection.
 Suggestions

• Improve the Professional Quality of Accounting

• Bothinstitutions and enterprises should pay attention to internal

financial management and the introduction and training of new
accounting talents.
 Suggestions.. Pay Attention to
Information Security Management

• Inthe intelligent accounting environment, the operation and

preservation of financial data need to go through the Internet or a
local area network. In this case, it is worth considering to what
extent financial practitioners should enhance the security of the
network, ensure the security of financial data information, and
strengthen the construction of the database.
 To Take Away...

To sum up, it is necessary to combine AI technology with accounting

work, which can effectively improve the quality and efficiency of accounting
work and promote the further development of the accounting industry.
It is worth noting that AI technology has both positive and negative sides,
which can not only improve the efficiency of accounting work and meet high-
end requirements for aiding management decision-making
AI also have some negative effects on accounting work, causing
unemployment of low-end financial practitioners or bringing data breach
risks.
Thank You!

Thank you!