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Rather than waiting for artificial intelligence to disrupt their business, one software provider leader is urging accountants to “be a part of that disruption”.
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‘Booming’ AI industry touted as opportunity for accountants
23 June 2017
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8 minute read
Speaking to Accountants Daily ahead of the release of MYOB’s latest Future of Business Report: The Age of Change yesterday, chief technical advisor Simon Raik-Allen believes that artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly infiltrating the accounting industry.
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“[Accounting] is based around numbers and numbers work very well with computers so that's a very obvious place where we are seeing lots of change,” he said.
“We're seeing in the accounting industry artificial intelligence is really booming. There’s lots of new products, lots of new things and lots of little things that accountants do [that] are now slowly being peeled away.”
Mr Raik-Allen said that the process of AI tools taking over various aspects of an accountant's work can be described as the “unbundling of compliance”.
“I’ve seen a 26-area map of what an accountant does and all the different kinds of AI tools that are now doing individual products for those particular areas.”
Mr Raik-Allen said he would like to see more accountants being proactively involved in this shift, rather than passively waiting for the change to impact them.
“There’s a lot going on and it’s really important for accountants to start getting on top of that,” he said.
“There’s opportunity to be a part of that, not just necessarily to be disrupted by that, but actually be a part of that disruption.”
Earlier this year, MyFirmsApp founder Joel Oliver told Accountants Daily that accountants must take control of technology if they want to benefit from it.
“There's a general fear in the market place about ‘is the accountant going to be replaced, is their job safe, is the future of the profession safe’,” Mr Oliver said.
“I think the answers to those questions are yes if they control it.”
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