Accountants are optimistic about digital transformation, including artificial intelligence, according to a survey by the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA).
The Digital Horizons survey, which garnered 1,074 responses from ACCA members around the world, revealed that 72% of financial professionals sees a range of key organisational benefits in adopting digital technologies including flexibility/adaptability, quality of products and services, sustainability performance, transparency and regulatory compliance.
But although accountants are optimistic on said digital developments, the professionals still see the main benefit of technology as offering efficiency and process improvements.
In the survey, 52% of the respondents ranked efficiency, internal process optimization or cost savings in their top three objectives in adopting a new technology. Only 18% included competition-related reasons, such as responding to customer demands, enhancing market insights, introducing 24/7 capabilities, or maintaining competitive advantage.
Additionally, cost remains the top challenge when adopting technology, but organisational culture also remains a critical factor in successful adoption.
The survey did see a more mixed response to how technology supports personal objectives, as productivity, collaboration, and career development were all strong but fears over job security were apparent. Only 30% of the respondents said technology was supportive in that respect.
Accountants trust AI
ACCA members show a high level of trust in artificial intelligence, with 70% agreeing with the statement ‘AI can increase the amount of time I have to focus on business-critical tasks’ – only 9% disagreed, with 15% neutral. They were less sure of the idea of AI performing business critical tasks (50% agreeing, 21% and 22% disagreeing or neutral) but even so the numbers reflected a sense of optimism.
Although just under one-fifth report the implementation of AI within their organisation, and another 8% are trialling initiatives, there are clearly great aspirations and a considerable opportunity to leverage these new capabilities.
Digital Horizons underlines the idea that the finance profession is well-situated to benefit from these technologies but realising their potential could require a mindset shift – thinking beyond mere efficiency gains towards a deeper understanding of value – as well as an adaptation of skills and practices.
“To a significant extent, AI is still thought about in terms of a gradual evolution of existing processes. From this perspective, the potential of AI is primarily in making the industry more efficient rather than thinking about how it could be fundamental to driving value related to new and existing demands,” said Alistair Brisbourne, head of technology research at ACCA.
