There’s a lot of talk these days in the spaces I occupy about artificial intelligence in accounting. Specifically, people ask “Why would anyone hire an accounting advisor when they can just use a generative AI platform for direction?”

There are a couple reasons why I firmly believe that human advisors are still very much needed. One, while it’s true that anyone with a ChatGPT account can input their question and get an answer, not everyone knows the best question to ask. That knowledge comes from years of experience and training in the field.

Two – and this might be the most important – gen-AI platforms tend to be overly deferential to the user, meaning that they often tell them what they want to hear, unless they’ve explicitly told the platform to not be so kind. People often cast themselves as the hero of the story – perhaps leaving out important context – so if there’s no pushback from the AI, the user runs the risk of being significantly misled.

I’ve used ChatGPT for some personal coaching, but only as a first pass-through to get me directionally closer to where I want to be. Even after encouraging it to push back when it makes sense, I still wouldn’t trust it to give me gold-plated advice that doesn’t require a second opinion. To ensure that proper context is being drawn out of me, I would only trust another human with lived experience.

AI is, and will continue, to bring about widespread change to the accounting industry, as it will to all professions. Many of those changes will be for the better, namely through the automation of rote and mundane tasks. As has been said many times by others, AI will not replace accountants, but accountants who don’t use AI will be replaced by accountants who do use it; and they will use it while pairing it with their training and experience.