tech

Accounting Tech Doesn’t Have to Be Daunting

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Getting unstuck on the tech stack and how to use AI today.

By Seth Fineberg
Analysis & Commentary

You’ve probably realized by now that the accounting profession has reached an inflection point. Professionals’ trust in the vendors that create and distribute the essential technology they use is strained at best. And with automation once again at the forefront, the very nature of accountant tasks is up for debate.

LIVE CHAT: Watch or listen to the entire Flash Briefing here.

In short, we needed a non-sponsored, real chat with actual practitioners who, by all accounts, know what it’s like to be a tech-forward accountant. Moreover, they know that’s not what the profession is comprised of and, despite being innovative, have struggled with tech adoption over the years. This is what our recent Flash Briefing, “Getting Real: The Accounting Tech Decisions You Need to Make Today,” was all about.

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Generative AI: Should You Avoid It or Adopt It?

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With AI, will it pay to be an early adopter or to be more cautious?

By Sandi Leyva
The Complete Guide to Marketing for Tax & Accounting Firms

When a new technology arises, accounting professionals tend to be skeptical. They are seldom the people who are first to jump on the bandwagon. It’s been true at the introduction of mainframes, when PCs first arrived, when networks were first developed, at the internet’s inception, and during social media’s adoption. So, it’s not surprising to hear that accountants are skeptical of the newest technology, generative artificial intelligence.

While there are certainly issues to be aware of with all new technologies, generative AI tools such as ChatGPT have the potential to save employees roughly two hours per day. It makes sense to at least learn about this technology to see if it fits in your firm.

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The term generative AI refers to technology that uses a machine learning model and that contains interactive features such as the ability to chat. One example is ChatGPT, which is a public, consumer-based product developed by OpenAI. Microsoft’s generative AI product is Bing AI, and Google’s entry is Bard. There are a dozen or so others, but those are the “big three.” These tools are rapidly evolving with new features, capabilities, and content added weekly if not daily.
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Electronic Skin That Can Sense Touch Will Transform Robotics

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Robots with touch-sensing capabilities will be able to interact more intuitively and safely.

By Rick Richardson
Technology This Week

In a significant leap forward for wearable technology, a team of researchers at Stanford University has made remarkable progress in developing electronic skin that possesses the ability to sense touch. This innovation has the potential to revolutionize industries ranging from healthcare to robotics, opening up new possibilities for human-machine interaction and sensory augmentation.

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The electronic skin, known as e-skin, mimics the sensory capabilities of human skin by integrating pressure sensors, stretchable circuitry, and a sophisticated neural network. The team accomplished this feat by combining advanced materials, flexible electronics, and machine learning algorithms. The result is a thin, flexible, and highly sensitive e-skin that can accurately perceive and respond to different levels of pressure and touch.

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What an A.I.-Powered Workforce Means for Accountants

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Ready or not, AI is here to stay.

By Rick Richardson
Technology This Week

The complicated relationship that humanity has had with its technological creations throughout time has shaped many executives’ views on adapting to change and remaining in demand in any industry or profession. The various cycles of emerging technology always enlighten, frighten and inspire the masses until we adjust and change our mindsets to embrace the disruption.

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Even though it has been present for decades, artificial intelligence (AI) is currently promoted as the dramatic change that threatens to upend our society. People are terrified as they try to imagine how it will change the way they live their lives, how they view their employment and what the future of their professions might bring. READ MORE →

Research: Accounting Pros Cautiously Optimistic about Generative AI

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Expert says we must work together to balance the benefits of technology and unintended consequences.

By Rick Richardson
Technology This Week

Thomson Reuters, a global content and technology company, recently released new research on generative AI that gauged the sentiment of professionals across legal, tax, and accounting firms in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada. The research sought to understand better how the technology is perceived and applied within the professional services industry. The report uncovered a mix of optimism and caution in adopting generative AI. 

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“Generative AI can disrupt and redefine the professional landscape, but it is clear from our findings that there is a trust gap with professionals,” said Steve Hasker, president and CEO of Thomson Reuters. “The future of professional work is set to be revolutionized by generative AI, and as an industry, we need to work together to find the right balance between the benefits of technology and any unintended consequences. We believe this will help our customers first to trust the transformative power of generative AI and then harness the opportunity to shape the future of their professions.”

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Bluetooth Getting Its Biggest Update in Years

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Wireless is working toward more wonderful.

By Rick Richardson
Technology This Week

Listen up if you want your headphones and speakers to produce better sound: Bluetooth bandwidth will double within the next few years, according to the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG).

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In a briefing held via Vimeo, the SIG stated it intends to increase the wireless transmission protocol’s current capacity from about “4Mbps to 6Mbps – maybe up to 8Mbps” and would begin investigating the 6GHz frequency range to enable speedier transmission.
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AI Systems Just for Accounting in Development

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Artist concept of an AI-based neuronWhat will Bloomberg’s GPT AI built for finance mean for accountants?

By Hitendra Patil
Rise of The AiCCOUNTANTS

Bloomberg released a research paper detailing the development of BloombergGPT, a new large-scale generative artificial intelligence (AI) specifically trained on a wide range of financial data to support diverse natural language processing (NLP) tasks within the financial industry.

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According to Bloomberg, “The team pulled from this extensive archive of financial data to create a comprehensive 363 billion token dataset consisting of English financial documents. This data was augmented with a 345 billion token public dataset to create a large training corpus with over 700 billion tokens. Using a portion of this training corpus, the team trained a 50-billion parameter decoder-only causal language model.”
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ChatGPT Passes CPA Exam on Second Try

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Its average score was 85.1.

By Rick Richardson
Technology This Week

An improved and better-trained version of ChatGPT took a simulated CPA test after an earlier failure and passed, similar to the roughly half of human applicants who fail on their first attempt. But does this trial suggest that ChatGPT will soon compete for accounting positions?

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“This calls into question the ‘competitive advantage’ of the human accountant relative to the machine. To our knowledge, for the first time, AI has performed as well as most human accountants on a real-world accounting task. This raises important questions of how machines and accountants will work together in the future,” the study’s authors said.
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