78% of accounting professionals use Gen-AI in their work

Although generative AI is still relatively new, it has already had an enormous impact on many accountants’ daily work already. The Karbon “State of AI In Accounting 2024” report presents research on how practicing accountants feel about AI and how they are already using it.

Key Points

The report presented a few key learnings:

• There’s no escaping AI: Most accountants expect AI to have a material impact on their work in the future.
• Roles matter: People’s attitude toward AI and its impact varies significantly depending on their role in a firm.
• No one’s being replaced, but change is coming: Very few accountants expect to be replaced by AI, although there is concern about bookkeepers.
• Humanity, ethics, and data security are big concerns: As expected, there is concern that AI will impact human interaction, potentially contravene data security and present certain ethical dilemmas.
• The biggest hurdle: AI intent vs. training: 82% of the respondents indicated that they were excited about AI, but only 25% were investing in training. Interestingly, there is a direct correlation between the size of the firm and the level of AI training investment – meaning that smaller firms will be left behind. 

How is AI used by accountants?

According to the research, accountants are using AI in three key ways:

🥇 #1 Communication: 59% of accountants are using AI to compose emails.

🥈 #2 Task automation: 36% are using AI to automate their workflows.

🥉 #3 Research: 31% are tapping into AI tools to help with research.

There are fewer who are using it for accounting specific functions like financial forecasting and analysis (11%), client support (10%), and tax preparation and audit (6%). The authors predict that there is a likelihood of this trend changing as more AI solutions that assist accounting-specific tasks continue to emerge.

What do accountants believe about AI?

Accounting professionals are beginning to recognise that AI is critical to any modern business strategy:

• 54% believe that the value of a firm drops if it doesn’t use AI.
• 66% agree that AI can serve as a competitive advantage.
• 46% agree that AI can help attract and retain more talent to the accounting field.

The CA Assistant can help your firm compete in an AI-powered world.

CA Assistant was built by accountants who work in small firms and recognise that it presents an opportunity for small firms to realise efficiency and accuracy that will allow them to compete with bigger firms. It is well trained and designed to support accountants and tax professionals in the fields of “communication” and “research” as this reports presents are the current use cases. In addition, it is trained technically to provide support in accounting specific functions. This report shows that AI is having an impact today and has shown that the CA Assistant is perfectly poised to support South African accountants across industry in becoming AI empowered.