iscoverAccounting professionals need to ensure the veracity of AI-generated information in the face of hallucinations and other challenges, APESB has stressed.
Ensuring accountants’ compliance with new technology revisions
10 November 2025
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6 minute read
At the start of the year, the Accounting Professional & Ethical Standards Board (APESB) added technology revisions to its APES 110 code of ethics for professional accountants, providing a framework for ethical AI use.
The use of AI comes with many benefits: quicker analysis, interpretation, summarisation and production of information, predictive insights and automated reporting; however, it also comes with ethical challenges, which have seen professionals being sanctioned for using inaccurate AI-produced information, APESB said.
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On 1 January 2025, new principle-based technology provisions were introduced to the APESB APES 110 Code of Ethics to ensure responsible and ethical use of technology, including AI tools, to ensure that fundamental principles such as integrity, professional competence and due care, and confidentiality are upheld.
Revisions were made to the professional competence and due care and confidentiality principles, requiring that practitioners participate in continued professional development for awareness and understanding of technology-related changes to the industry. Compliance with the code will help to mitigate risks that may arise from AI use, APESB said.
APESB stressed that analysis, professional judgement, and the outcomes of the professional activity remain the responsibility of the practitioner – demonstrating the importance of keeping a human in the loop.
The board noted that AI has the potential to “hallucinate” and provide inaccurate information. As a result, the board emphasised that practitioners must make critical assessments and verify any AI-generated information used or produced for a professional activity. The board advised that practitioners declare any use of AI, including disclosing AI methodologies used to prepare reports in professional services such as valuation, forensic accounting, and corporate finance.
Despite these compliance requirements, an adequate strategic plan can assist in avoiding other risks to firms, including cyber incidents, and also has the potential to support compliance, accelerating the flow of regulatory information, improving check accuracy, while reducing the reliance on solely human vigilance.
“Technological developments, including artificial intelligence, are reshaping the way professional accountants who are members of the Australian accounting bodies perform their professional activities,” the board concluded.
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