AI is on everyone’s lips right now. But for teams in small- to mid-sized organisations, it can be hard to know how to practically benefit from this huge, potentially world-changing technology. In some ways its benefits are clear and obvious. Processing information at previously unheard-of speeds, automating menial tasks, and removing the need for complex hard-coding from so many of these processes. But in others, it can be hard to channel your usage. Not just feeding your GPT of choice a bunch of scattergun tasks, but truly harnessing the capabilities of artificial intelligence to transform your work.

With that in mind, we’ve been working on research into this exact issue. In our latest report, The Journey to AI Collaboration, produced in partnership with the University of Georgia, we’ve found that it’s the accountants who actively work and collaborate with AI, rather than simply using it for menial tasks, who see real gains. 

AI – Good for People, Good for Business

In this case, we’re defining ‘collaboration’ as ‘actively working with AI in intentional ways to achieve specific tasks and product deliverables related to accounting.’ And by ‘gains’, I don’t just mean what appears at the bottom of their organisations’ balance sheets. I mean benefits that can be seen in the lives of the accountants themselves. They sleep better, feel less burnt out, and report stronger satisfaction with their work. 

For example, when scored on a ‘burnout scale’ from one to 100, AI collaborators registered only 17.5 compared to non-AI-users on 21.6. Likewise, a majority (52%) of AI collaborators reported feeling well-rested from their sleep, compared to only 18% of non-AI users. 

Our previous research has shown organisations that improve their employees’ quality of working life and work-life balance tend to see better performance, which in turn supports growth. It’s all a virtuous cycle. So, as companies invest in their stance, they need to ensure it’s based on collaboration, rather than treating it like any other software solution.

What’s more, accountants and CFOs who collaborate with artificial intelligence are more likely to report being proactive, staying engaged, and having a valuable voice in their roles. They are almost twice as likely to make choices that impact their organisation’s performance and make suggestions for achieving strategic objectives. They are also more likely to have a valuable voice in strategic direction.

A Barn Door to Aim for

Only 5–6% of accountants and CFOs have meaningfully integrated AI into their work – yet those are the ones who see the kind of benefits described above. Clearly, this is a bit of a barn door to aim for: the vast majority of accountants aren’t yet collaborating in a truly valuable way with this technology.

This doesn’t mean AI is a foreign concept in accounting – quite the opposite. We found that 76% of respondents had used it at work. In other words, at the most basic level, it is already well bedded into our industry. But it’s that ‘meaningfully’ word that makes the difference. ‘Using’ AI covers everything from asking it to write or edit an email, to uploading data and asking a non-company-sanctioned generative AI tool to create a summary.

Of that 76%, less than 10 percent say AI has become integral to their work. Crossing the boundary into integral collaboration rather than simply using a tool requires a qualitatively different approach. It means being intentional and specific about what you’re trying to achieve and should result in being able to complete your work more efficiently – not just differently – with that AI assistance.

Company-Wide Benefits of AI

AI collaboration benefits accountants, but it also transforms entire organisations. Employee retention sits at 59% for ‘AI collaborators’ – companies that fold AI into their processes as a partner, rather than an endpoint solution. In general, we found that organisations that support collaboration do better at keeping their high-value staff, have more trust in the results AI models produce, and a clearer vision for the future.

For instance, we asked respondents to indicate their agreement with five statements on the extent to which their work and profession were important to them and their sense of self. Turning those results into a score out of 100, we found that AI collaborators hit a whopping 83, compared to non-AI users on 62. This seems to indicate a positive feedback loop between intelligent, collaborative use of artificial intelligece and a strong sense of identity with the accounting profession.

Organisations that support accountant-AI collaboration also see increased productivity. Accountants who collaborate with AI are more likely to report that they have sufficient time to do their work (56%). Accountants in AI-forward organisations also report a lower sense of time pressure (10 points lower) than accountants who use it in a non-integrated way or accountants who do not use AI. These benefits of AI collaboration also help the CFO by making the accounting function easier to operate and freeing up accountants’ time and energy for more strategic tasks.

A Leadership Lag

Despite the benefits, there are significant barriers to building effective accountant-AI teams. Most accountants and CFOs do not feel prepared for the transition to AI collaboration, and only a small percentage have a complete vision for the role of artificial intelligence in accounting. While AI’s potential is huge, most leaders don’t have
a plan – only 16% of CFOs have a vision for how it will transform accounting in their organisation.

Realising the potential of AI collaboration in accounting starts with two steps with which accountants should be familiar. First, organisations need to proactively define roles and responsibilities in relation to AI. Then, with that clarity in place, they need to work on a collaborative, human-AI team tasked with accomplishing certain shared objectives.

It’s also crucial to work on growing employees’ trust in artificial intelligence. Knowing the roles that AI is designed to play and understanding your role relative to AI is just as important as knowing how your role connects with the role of a co-worker. Accountants who are actively collaborating with AI are also more likely to view it as auditable – which requires a clear sense of what AI is supposed to do and how it should go about those tasks. Likewise, collaborators are 25 points more likely to view AI as explainable – feeling able to explain how it does what it does.

Making the Most of the New World

The bottom line of these findings is simple: accountants have made the first move in starting to use AI day-to-day, but the next step is to harness its full abilities in a truly collaborative way. It’s crucial to fold artificial intelligence into accounting processes as a key player, not a standalone tool, fostering greater understanding among employees of who’s responsible for it, what its goals are, how it performs its tasks, and what its goals should be. With that kind of on-boarding, accountants and their companies alike will benefit – unlocking greater efficiency, improved job satisfaction, better work-life balance, and stronger growth.

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