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Data and technology

AI hesitation and why investing now could pay off

Despite being a major investment, expert say that embracing artificial intelligence implementation and training now will work out in a company’s favour in the future

As technology continues to develop at an increasingly fast pace, Canadian companies are taking notice—and making great strides in the right direction. We’re hearing fewer conspiracies about robots ruling people and seeing less tinfoil hats. Instead, we’re thinking of how we can use these advances to give us a competitive edge. CPAs in particular are exploring how advantageous AI can be when it comes to financial reporting. 

“As CPAs, our job is to analyze a lot of information,” says Bryant Ramdoo, partner and national audit and assurance innovation leader at KPMG in Canada, “and one of the huge benefits of AI in financial reporting is the ability to predict and determine trends. It's the ability to process a lot more information and leverage all of that data.” 

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And the truth is in the numbers. A recent KPMG study looked at 1800 companies across ten major markets and found that 73 per cent of Canadian companies are already piloting and evaluating results in financial reporting using AI. It’s pretty impressive when you compare that to 39 per cent of the global market.  

Where Canada lags is in the actual implementation of the technology: Only 14 per cent of companies are currently using it. There’s a lot to think about before businesses jump in. Things like data privacy, compliance with regulations and laws and continuous training need to be considered. 

The report goes on to say that almost all of the companies are expected to boost their funding in AI-related activities. In fact, 100 per cent of the businesses studied will be trialing and using AI in the next three years.  

“In the short term, it’s not cheap,” says Melissa Robertson, principal of Data Integrity and Assurance with CPA Canada, focused on Research, Guidance and Support. “But investing now to find the right fit for AI technology to be integrated in the business means earlier wins for longer term profitability.”  

Of course, it’s not just the technology that needs to be invested in, but also in the people across organizations (legal, IT, change management), invested in the infrastructure to support the technology, and invested in continuous learning to keep pace with the speed at which new technologies are developing, Ramdoo and Robertson both explain. Because of the speed at which the technology is developing, it’s going to mean continuous learning and training at all levels. “We really need to make sure people understand how the technology works and where it doesn’t work,” explains Ramdoo. 

Based on the current pilot projects, these investments are well worth the time and money. Not only does AI offer comprehensive predictions and trend analysis in financial reporting,  it also provides better data-enabled decisions, increased data accuracy and reliability, and greater employee productivity and efficiency.  

Perhaps most importantly, says Robertson, is that the implementation of AI-related activities could likely lead to the removal of repetitive or monotonous tasks. Instead it frees up time for skilled workers to focus on other added-value activities. 

“Humans couldn't possibly analyze thousands and thousands of megabytes of data and form cohesive conclusions or predictions based on that,” adds Ramdoo. But AI can. And it’s just silly not to use that to our advantage. 

That doesn’t mean that the bots are coming for your job. But it does provide the opportunity to work on things that are more meaningful and impactful and maybe even allow you to flex your creative muscle. As AI becomes more widely used, companies will be looking to auditors for not only increased accuracy but also for more know-how to develop more proactive, continuous and predictive processes, as well as deeper insights. 

Robertson cautions that one challenge in implementing this technology will be finding ways to ensure we’re not removing the understanding and training behind those manual tasks that we no longer need to complete.  

“As more CPAs leverage AI in their everyday tasks,” she explains, “I think we’ll reach that level of knowledge where we can better understand what are the promises of the technology, and where old fashioned manual effort is better.”