Most CPAs and accounting professionals would agree that artificial intelligence (AI) can help them improve efficiency, but they are implementing it in varying degrees — those in the largest organizations are using it in moderation, while others are still somewhat skeptical of its analysis, results and reasoning. As AI continues to gain ground, accounting professionals see a variety of good uses of AI for their own organizations and their clients.
Creation and Engagement
Using AI to generate engagement letters, proposals and social media posts in a matter of seconds is extremely useful for accounting professionals. Becky Livingston, owner and CEO of Penheel Marketing, said a significant benefit of AI is to “create social media posts that focus on engagement rather than sales.” She added, “some AI-powered tools can analyze social media performance metrics and respond to comments or messages.”
AI tools can also be used to identify priority keywords for search engine optimization (SEO). “Once identified, apply those terms to your website, email, social media, website images, videos, etc. They can also analyze competitor strategies and monitor changes in search algorithms,” she explained, which can help accounting firms stay ahead of market changes and client demands.
Quickly sifting through data to single out a specific customer group is an ideal use of AI, which can assist CPAs and their clients in a variety of industries. Alex Volpi, technology advisory practice leader at Wiss, explained that AI presents a unique experience for technology companies and those that offer online educational classes, in particular. “Generative AI could automatically translate any course into the customer’s preferred language. The company could also use generative AI to create a custom curriculum based on individual learning style and goals.” He noted that by “hyper-personalizing the learning experience, the customer is receiving exactly what they want, which can improve their learning performance and overall customer satisfaction.”
Karolis Matulis, CPA, CITP, CVA, a manager at WilkinGuttenplan and the leader of the NJCPA Emerging Technologies Interest Group, said AI is very useful in manufacturing and in the medical field, in particular. “Firms deploy AI for quality control, using machine learning to predict and detect faults, and setting new benchmarks for product quality,” he said. Professionals also benefit from AI “in reviewing medical imaging, enhancing diagnostics with unprecedented precision and speed.”
Better Analysis
AI is increasingly being used to find fraud and useful anomalies in reports and data, document reviews and summaries. Using data for competitive analysis regarding other organizations is particularly useful, according to Livingston. “Develop a competitor gap analysis. Then create information to fill it and expand your target market,” she explained. “AI tools can also monitor competitors’ activities, including marketing campaigns and client reviews, providing valuable insights to refine your firm’s marketing strategies.”
For accounting advisory firms like SAX, AI usage goes hand in hand with security, according to Rob Owen, chief information officer and head of SAX Technology Advisors. “Our first concern is always going to be security of our client data and obviously our intellectual property,” he said. “We have some process/procedure rules in place around how we let the generalized members of the firm interact with the more ubiquitous AI tools out there, like ChatGPT.”
Owen explained, “I challenge everybody around here every day. Think about tasks that are highly repeatable or are administrative tasks where we are using a person to do something that’s based on a logic tree, doing the same thing over and over...That is what the lowest hanging fruit is in the accounting world.” He added that if something costs $30 to do onshore and costs $10 to do it offshore, the recipe is there to do it for $1 through some form of automation/AI. And, Owen noted, AI will do it with high levels of accuracy and never complain or take a vacation. Relating to its existing software stack, he said, “We are challenging our vendors almost on a daily basis to leverage automation and AI.”
Recognizing the need to stay competitive in an AI-filled world was one of the impetuses behind SAX launching its customized e-learning platform to train their own employees. Nick Romanowski, director of Learning & Development at SAX, said its Amplifire platform offers courses on technical and soft skills. “Given its unique, adaptive component in that it uses question-based learning, it’s continuously assessing the user’s knowledge and adapting the course to skill gaps instead of their strengths,” he added. “The experience is very personalized and, as a result, it cuts down on the total time that’s needed to complete that training, so we are able to provide a very bespoke training experience just to what that person needs and, often times, it’s in less time.”
It may still take longer to see everyday functions in accounting performed with the use of AI, however. As Matulis explained, “The accounting industry will benefit from AI’s ability to extract, ingest and understand data. Many of these tools still need time to mature, but it will not be long before they make their way into the software we use every day.” And its potential seems limitless, he noted. “We’re witnessing the early stages of a new tech revolution.”