The AI Tsunami Is Here: Are You Ready?

Brian Blaha, CPA Growth Partner, Wipfli LLP
Strategic Insights for Today’s Firm Leaders

If you’re like me, you may think of artificial intelligence (AI) as a catch-all term that seems almost untouchable. It’s a nebulous concept that leaves those of us without computer programming skills often believing that “AI is coming for our jobs.”

Much has been written about how AI is going to eliminate the need for an accountant to prepare taxes, close business’ books, or perform audits. Despite the media hype and fear-based posturing driving the headlines, I believe AI can help the CPA profession evolve and capitalize on its position as a learned profession. If done right, AI can enhance the stature of our roles and further accentuate the importance and value of what we do. How? AI requires human intervention.

THE HUMAN COMPONENT

The necessity of human intervention can best be explained by examining generative AI, such as ChatGPT. Think of generative AI as a digital assistant sitting alongside us, speeding up our mundane tasks. It requires users to interact with natural language and the new content produced by the AI model is returned in the same natural language. These generative AI models are trained on a large volume of human originated text which, based on the user prompt, predicts the output.

Examples of generative AI models include GPT-4/ChatGPT from OpenAI, LLaMA from Meta, Sparrow, and Bard and LaMDA from Google. There’s also DALL-E from OpenAI, which uses prompts to create pictures. Additionally, Microsoft’s investment in OpenAI is fueling its current product releases, including Copilot, which is described as a real-time collaborator—it generates content, sparks creativity, automates cognitive tasks, and completes work.

To interact with generative AI models, we need to become comfortable using prompts (i.e., a natural language input that tells the AI model what to do). Prompts can range from asking a simple question to requesting solutions to complex problems. The more prescriptive the prompt, the more complex the generated response will be. For example, consider including instructions, data (links or csv files), or examples with your prompts.

The important thing to note is that using generative AI will require experimentation. Ultimately, if you’re unsatisfied with your results, change your prompts and try again!

THE CPA COMPONENT

There’s no doubt that AI is storming through the CPA profession at a tsunami-like pace, leaving many of us concerned for what’s ahead. So, what is the future of the CPA profession in the age of AI? Well, according to the response I received from ChatGPT, it sounds promising:

“In the age of AI, the CPA profession will likely undergo significant changes, but AI is unlikely to replace the need for human expertise in complex decision-making and strategic planning. Instead, CPAs will need to adapt and leverage AI technologies to improve accuracy, efficiency, and decision-making while also developing soft skills and staying current with emerging technologies such as cloud computing and blockchain. Overall, the CPA profession will require agility, adaptability and technological expertise while continuing to provide high-level strategic advice and expertise to clients.”

These days, when you ask a CPA how their day was, you get some version of “busy.” Truthfully, our days typically include a large amount of busy time that isn’t adding value to our clients or our organizations. Our output typically has some value, but our processes and the time it takes to perform our tasks—such as generating emails and content, summarizing meetings, creating action plans, etc.—can be inefficient. As CPAs, the value we bring to the equation is the perspective we deliver, our knowledge on complex topics, and our understanding of the relationships between financial and regulatory problems. We earn our living by deploying these skills. If we’re able to use generative AI models to speed up mundane tasks, we could redeploy the saved time in more valuable ways. I can think of a few examples:

• Calling a client to show curiosity about their business.
• Mentoring an employee.
• Collaborating with a colleague over a business concern.
• Thinking strategically/brainstorming about a business issue.
• Taking a LinkedIn Learning class about generative AI.
• Going for a walk.

If we were able to spend more time doing these activities, wouldn’t every nugget of time be seen as more valuable and meaningful? It’s this understanding that can help us better frame how AI isn’t coming for our jobs. Rather, it’s going to enhance them.

To reap the rewards of what’s to come, it’ll be important to standardize and rethink our business processes and value propositions.

THE GENERATIVE AI COMPONENT

As you think through the uses of generative AI, it doesn’t take long to see the various potential issues that may arise due to the transformative nature of this technology.

Most of the creators of AI models are calling for responsible regulation and guidelines. This isn’t dissimilar to other periods in our history where transformational technology led to a period of chaotic deployment, eventually followed by regulation creating order. The difference here may be the pace of invention and adoption is at a speed we’ve never seen before. For example, the adoption of mobile phone technology took a decade to catch on, whereas the use of ChatGPT took just months to reach the same number of users.

As a professional, it’ll be important to participate in this change. We’ll all be learning this together, so I invite you to join me on this journey. To get started, I recommend:

• Educating yourself. Read articles and watch videos about some of the terms I discussed.
• Experimenting. Go to OpenAI’s website to create a free account to try ChatGPT.
• Staying current. Be mindful of developments in generative AI ethics and legislation.
• Sharing. As you become informed, inform others about what you’ve learned.

The more time we can spend harnessing this groundbreaking technology to improve upon what we do, the better strategic business advisors we’ll be.

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• The Bots Are Coming: Getting robotic process automation right should be CPA firms’ future focus.