‘Deep breath’ needed on AI, says tech consultant
AI will provide useful solutions within accounting software in coming years but its impact has been greatly overhyped, according to an accounting software expert.
While accounting firms should keep an eye on the developments happening with artificial intelligence (AI), claims about AI dramatically transforming the accounting industry in the short term have been exaggerated, says the head of Practice Connections Alan FitzGerald.
In a lot of his recent engagements with accounting practices, Mr FitzGerald said there’s been considerable concern from firms about being left behind as AI evolves.
“There’s a lot of pundits going around and saying that if you’re not on AI that the world’s going to change and you’re going to be left behind. I don’t see that as being the case,” said Mr FitzGerald.
While AI will become an important component of accounting and practice management software systems in the years ahead, Mr FitzGerald said its impact has “certainly been overhyped” for the accounting industry.
“There’s already so many companies and people claiming to be AI experts but GPT-4 was only came into existence within the past year. It is fun to play with but the whole premise of AI was that it would do the drudgery and leave us with the creative but it’s actually doing all the creative and often very badly. There’s also the issues with copyright and things like that,” he said.
There are also concerns about the longevity of tools such as ChatGPT, said Mr FitzGerald, with the cost of running ChatGPT estimated to be around $700,000 a day to run due to the significant computing power required.
“There’s concerns it may not be around in 12 months time because they’ll simply burn up the cash. So you have all these people racing to get on ChatGPT but it may not actually be around that much longer,” he said.
“So I think a deep breath needs to be taken in relation to AI. It’s good to keep an eye on it but it’s not going to overwhelm what’s happening out in the market.”
Mr FitzGerald said the capabilities of AI will likely evolve into the software products that accounting firms are already using.
“So within Microsoft Office for example, AI will become a component within it or within the various practice management systems,” he said.
This means that firms should be focusing their attention on the release notes from software providers instead.
“AI will happen but it will just be a component of the various systems. My key message is that if firms want to become more efficient they should be exploring some of the extra functions that exist in their existing software,” said Mr FitzGerald.
“With most software applications around 20 per cent of the functions account for 80 per cent of the use. So it’s worth exploring the functions in your existing software and that starts by reading those release notes because most people they don’t, they tend to stay in their comfort zone.”
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