Will Accountants Be Replaced by AI?

We Calculated the AI Replaceability Index which can indicate how endangered your job truly is. The results are more nuanced than you would think and the answer is not a simple yes or no.

With the skyrocketing adoption of AI tools, millions of accountants worldwide worry about the future of their jobs. Will your accounting job be safe, or will it be replaced by AI? Turns out it depends on what you actually do all day. 

AI Replaceability Index (ARI)

Luckily, there is a way for you to calculate just how worried you really need to be. The AI Replaceability Index, or ARI, is a scoring system Elite Brains built to measure how likely a specific job is to be replaced by AI in the future.

The ARI takes into account different metrics from 2 dimensions: how capable is AI to do this job and what structural barriers are standing in the way of AI replacing this job. The scoring system ranges from 0-10 and the higher the score the higher the risk. Anyone who wants to keep their peace of mind can calculate their own score using the Elite Brains calculator. For accountants, the score will likely range from approximately 4 to 6, depending on their daily responsibilities.

It only takes seconds to create a sample calculation

This is what a sample calculation for an accountant could look like. How did we end up with a 4.89 score? Check the full logic behind the AI Replaceability Index -  then calculate the AI replaceability score for your own position.

Accounting day-to-day responsibilities

The day to day responsibilities of an accountant depend on their specialization, seniority, and the sector they work in. Most of their tasks can be categorized by routine exposure and fall into one of two distinct buckets. At the high routine end: coding invoices, recording transactions, reconciling bank accounts, generating standard financial reports, or processing payrolls. Those are standardized repetitive tasks with predictable outputs in digital format making them highly susceptible to AI takeover. At the opposite end are low routine or high judgement tasks requiring context, experience, the ability to navigate ambiguity. Those are tasks such as regulations interpretation, client advising, and financial scenario modeling, in other words tasks where AI falls short.

What AI can already do in accounting

• Coding and processing invoices - AI can assign the correct GL account, cost center, or department to each invoice. It can easily read the vendor, amount, or line items with absolutely no human input.

• Recording transactions - AI can replace manual data entry by pulling information from bank feeds, receipts or payment platforms and log them into the books.

• Reconciling bank accounts - AI can cross-reference thousands and thousands of transactions in a matter of seconds and flag any discrepancies between the accounting system and what is actually in the bank.

• Generating standard financial reports - AI is able to automatically assemble and format balance sheets, P&Ls, or cash flow statements.

• Processing payrolls - AI can calculate taxes, salaries, deductions, or benefits each payday for each employee.

• Detecting fraud and anomalies - AI uses historical patterns to flag outliers the second they appear, something a human review would hardly be able to do.

What AI cannot do in accounting

• Regulation interpretation and judgment application - AI is not able to navigate the grey areas of tax codes, accounting standards or compliance. It can find the relevant regulations or laws for a specific situation but doesn't know what nuances to look for and how to apply the information to a real life scenario. A human input is still key here.

• Advising clients -  AI can run the numbers, but it cannot  understand the complexity of everyday life. In situations like crash crisis, or major investments, where understanding history, risks, or goals is key, human approach cannot be beat.

• Financial scenario modeling - AI is helpful with modeling a scenario, but it will not understand what those numbers mean in reality, requiring human judgement.

• Managing relationships and reading the room - relationships are key in business and to build a successful long-term client relationship, you need empathy, understanding, agility, and history. You need to understand the current needs of your client, which requires emotional intelligence only a human has.

• Navigating novel or unprecedented situations - As AI learns from historical data, its knowledge is limited to situations that have already happened before. Should an unprecedented event arise, AI will not know how to react as it has no history to fall back on.

This split clearly demonstrates that accounting is not one job and whether you are a staff accountant, financial analyst, tax advisor, or another type of accountant that worries for their future, now is the time to adapt. Use the Elite Brains ARI calculator to measure your replaceability risk and start adapting to the new reality. Because the real divide is between those who will adapt and those who won't.