AI trust gap between leaders and staff remains

Accountants have grown more excited about AI overall, but an enthusiasm gap remains between firm leaders and staff, showing that management's views are still out of step with individual contributors and staff in technology, operations and administrative positions. 

This is according to the State of AI in Accounting Report, authored by practice management solutions provider Karbon. Among firm owners, leaders and partners, AI enthusiasm has grown dramatically: the proportion who said they were excited about AI went from 41% last year to 63% this year, while 7% were skeptical or scared compared to 8% last year. In contrast, among individual contributors and staff in technology, operations and administrative positions, the proportion of those excited went from 26% to 40%, and those skeptical or scared increased from 18% to 11%. 

This is in line with other research that shows a gulf of enthusiasm between the upper and lower echelons of a company over AI. A survey by Workday, for example, found that while 62% of business leaders (C-suite or their direct reports) welcome AI, only 52% of employees did. The survey also found that 23% are not confident their organization puts employee interests above its own when implementing AI. More recently, Slack found that while executive urgency to incorporate AI tools into business operations has increased seven times over the last six months, just 7% of desk workers consider the outputs of AI completely trustworthy for work-related tasks, with 35% of desk workers saying AI results are only slightly or not at all trustworthy.

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Karbon, however, noted that whatever employees may be feeling, AI usage continues to grow, with 80% of accounting professionals reporting increased AI functionality in their existing software. While concerns remain, they are diminishing over time. 

"So, while some hesitation is natural—and necessary for a fully rounded discussion—attitudes towards AI in the accounting industry are increasingly more positive. Firm leaders especially are lighting the way forward," said the report. 

Karbon's report noted that executives are 2.5 times more likely than individual contributors to be excited about the prospect of using AI to forgo hiring staff in the next one to two years, which likely will not endear them to human staff members. 

The most common AI use case for accountants, at 63%, is communication: tasks like writing emails and fine-tuning their tone. Behind this, at 41%, is task automation, followed closely behind by meeting transcripts, at 40%. Meanwhile, 39% of the respondents are using it for research, 26% for marketing content, and 13% for financial forecasting and analysis. 

Time saved

The survey also found that AI solutions have saved accountants between 3.8 to 6.5 hours over a five-day work week. 

A Karbon spokesperson said the company derived this figure based on self-reported data from poll respondents. The two relevant questions were: "How much time do you estimate AI saved you per day at work?" and "Of the time saved by AI in administrative tasks, how much do you estimate is specifically related to AI helping with communication?" Beginner-level AI users said they saved an average of 46 minutes per day while advanced users reported time savings of 79 minutes per day. Overall, the report found 71% more time is saved by advanced users of AI than beginners. 

"By saving time, firm leaders are creating space for more meaningful work," said the report. "In the future, accounting professionals may choose to, or be asked to, develop new advisory or technical skills to satisfy evolving client expectations, which means their capacity (and work-life balance) is just as important as their capability."

This result calls to mind a poll from last year released by business solutions provider Intapp, which found accountants reporting time savings of about 31 hours a week. Automating data entry saved accountants six hours a week, using voice queries saved them five hours, automating data summarization gave them seven hours, automating document generation provided seven more hours, and generating recommendations saved them five hours. The poll found that professionals of all stripes believe that automation will provide positive dividends.

Accounting Today asked about the discrepancy between the two polls. An Intapp spokesperson said the 31 hours figure was a projection based on accountants' belief in how much time they could save using AI for a total of hours saved when applied to data entry, voice queries, data summarization, document generation and recommendations on a weekly basis. The question was posed to both users and non-users of AI and reflected their expectations for the technology, rather than actual time saved. The spokesperson said Intapp is currently working on its next iteration of the survey and initial data suggests actual AI-driven time savings are in the three to five hours per week range.