I go to a conference every year that is about all the issues involved in running a CPA firm. A few years back they started saying, “Don’t worry. Artificial intelligence isn’t coming for your job, it’s just going to make you better at it.” A couple years ago, that changed to “Artificial Intelligence is not coming for your job, but the person who knows how to use it is.”
This year the message was different again. There were several presentations on Generative A.I. You ask it a question, and it generates an answer from a massive database of information. That’s what we’ve been working with so far. In addition to generative A.I. though, they were also presenting Agentic A.I., a new term for me. Agentic A.I. is more like a well-versed autonomous assistant. It’s active, not reactive. Present it with some information and ask it to perform a task, and it will. While executing that task, it will make assumptions and decisions as necessary and highlight those when it presents the finished product for your review. Provide feedback and it learns from its mistakes. All sorts of industries, including CPA firms, are developing task specific agents. If you are somebody’s assistant, A.I. is definitely coming for your job.
Thomson Reuters, a software provider for accountants, demonstrated their tax preparation “agent” that they already have. They loaded this agent with the entire tax code, a whole bunch of completed tax returns, and firm standards for tax returns. It won’t do really complicated returns yet, but it can charge through a simple 1040. They uploaded a bunch of tax documents, in various formats, like a tax client might; enough for a normal 1040 tax return. They asked the tax “agent” to prepare the return. The agent standardized the document formats, sorted the information, compared it to the prior return, prepared the current year return, and presented it to the tax manager for review; highlighting any critical decisions it made, and any areas of concern. A highly qualified assistant, still requiring adult supervision, but mighty impressive.
A few years ago, the technical presenters at this conference confessed that they have been telling people for years that if you want job security, learn to code. As computers continue to do more and more, that’s where the future will be. Now, they’re talking about how wrong they were. There are A.I. agents that will do the coding for you, and they’re getting better every year (month). They’re fast. They work 24/7. They don’t take days off. The hottest new programming language is English. That’s what they’re saying now.
For the last several years, I’ve been interested in offshoring. Working with a team in another country that has lower wages and benefits than here might save money, but that’s not the major draw. It would be a way to contract high quality help and split some of our work with an offshore team. Parts of our jobs don’t need to be done by an onsite auditor, or in direct contact with the client. Leverage the skilled auditors we have on staff with qualified assistants who can contribute to the workflow. There are offshoring companies that have the whole process already set up and are contracting out staff. Now, with Agentic A.I. though, I can’t imagine going through the logistics of staffing offshore. Train an A.I. “agent” to assist with the fieldwork, and the experienced auditors can plan and manage the job and interact with the client. Way less complicated than offshoring.
If we’re fans of the status quo, this could all be alarming, because what we do and how we do it is about to be revolutionized. Even if we’re excited about the changes coming, it will be hard to navigate them all. For instance, we will all have access to a digital assistant that will be fast and efficient and take the place of multiple human assistants. That will leverage our capabilities, but what about all the industries where starting out at the assistant function is the way people are trained up to be the seniors and managers? How do people just coming out of school leap that gap and learn the ropes so they can have the experience to be the manager in charge who relates what we know directly to the client?
I don’t know what we need to do to get ready for the tsunami of capability that is coming at us, but status quo is not an option. If we’re not willing to learn and adapt quickly, this wave will roll right over us. What exactly we do to get ready, who knows? I guess if we can’t figure it out though, we can always ask A.I….
