Reviewing AI-generated answers: A new revenue segment for accountants?

"Would you like your answer to be reviewed and verified by a tax professional for only $5?"

I recently asked an online artificial intelligence powered tool a hypothetical tax question. After providing the answer to my question, it asked me if I'd like to buy a professional review. 

OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, recently released its GPT-4 version and showcased how it can compute taxes. I then checked with some real tax professionals (humans) who told me that while the answer was a good demonstration of the AI capabilities, it did not have the full context of the applicable tax possibilities. By the way, it was mentioned during the demo of GPT-4 that the AI model was not specifically trained on taxes (an unsupervised learning method).

Being ultra-curious, I first tried an online tax help service named TaxGPT at ZeroTax.ai. Their website states that it uses advanced artificial intelligence and a team of tax experts to give fast, accurate answers to any tax-related question. It gave me an answer to my hypothetical but practical tax question and then asked me if I wanted the answer reviewed by a tax professional for a (low, I guess introductory) price. 

I then asked the same tax question of ChatGPT. I got a very similar answer. ChatGPT did not propose a fee-based review but stated, "It's recommended that you consult with a tax professional or use tax software." 

I then researched further to learn that BlueJ will launch "Ask BlueJ, which would answer tax questions correctly," and I found that April is using an embedded AI approach to integrate tax experiences wherever people are making financial decisions. 

It's safe to assume that top software solution providers in the accounting and tax profession will significantly increase their AI leverage in times to come.

It all reminded me of my 2015 light-hearted take on the accounting firm of the future, where I had (jokingly) proposed that accountants would charge a hefty fee to review the tax returns produced by the automated system of the IRS. Little did I visualize then that this prediction might turn real!

Similar and different

The relevant provisions, dollar amounts and due dates provided by both ChatGPT and ZeroTax were similar, which seemed to be coming from the relevant regulations. 

Instead of going through several search results that any search engine throws at you and then trying to figure out what would be the most pertinent information, this GPT-driven method is undoubtedly a faster and more efficient use of one's time. 

I do not know whether the answers provided were accurate and compliant with all the provisions that apply to a given tax situation. That is where this proposal to "get the answer reviewed by a professional for a fee" comes in. 

Threat or opportunity?

It's important to note these AI tools are still very new. They will evolve rapidly. This technology is super-powerful, and it will only get better with time. And it is also essential to know that all the craze such tools have generated ensures that millions of queries (prompts/chats/conversations) fired into such tools are "training" them. Yes, what you ask the AI tool gets stored in its massive data repository, automatically analyzed and organized for future reference. It all helps enhance the tool's "knowledge and judgment." 

Plus, any software company wanting to create AI-powered tools specifically for the accounting and tax profession will use all the transactional data and regulations to train their AI models. Don't forget — billions of dollars are being invested in creating the massive computing infrastructure required to assimilate and process such a colossal volume of data. 

Interestingly, when I asked ChatGPT how much time it will take a human to learn what it "knows," here was its answer: "It would be impossible for a human being to learn all of this data, let alone the complex algorithms and architectures used to train and develop me." Before you get flustered by this, to put it in the proper perspective: The question, and its answer, were not specifically about accounting or tax knowledge. 

Is this new AI wave a threat or an opportunity for you? It depends on what you do to align with this wave and stay a few steps ahead. 

First, it is critically essential for accountants to learn how AI solutions are created and how AI (continuously) learns and works. To understand that, you must know the basics of technological components used in building AI tools, not like a programmer, but to become familiar with the new basics of doing accounting business.

When you know that AI has limitations, that it can have biases, and that it can base its answers on common trends, not necessarily on facts and truth, etc., you know that new opportunities will emerge. When you know that your human faculties will be your superpower in the AI-powered future, you know you will have new opportunities. 

The popularity of AI tools will likely entice people to use them to get answers to complex accounting and tax questions. And people will probably get conflicting answers, or their understanding of the answers will cause concerns. 

Hence, one of the most important opportunities will be to leverage your expertise to review, audit and correct, where required, what AI does, for the kind of fee that top consultants/advisors command. The new opportunity is to become an AIccountant. You will want to learn as much as possible about AI to make it a tool in your repertoire — perhaps the most powerful tool you have ever used.