BCAS President CA Anand Bathiya’s Message for the Month of September 2024

“Sir, what supplementary courses would you recommend I take alongside my Chartered Accountancy course?” asked a young and enthusiastic student who recently embarked on her Articleship journey. The student was attending an orientation program conducted by her firm to welcome the new 2024 batch of recruits.

The principal, with grey hair and a composed demeanour, articulated to the student, “In our era, we focused on enhancing our ‘technical’ proficiency through courses like masters, legal qualifications, CS, CWA, CFA, and so on. However, today it is crucial for you to also develop ‘technological’ proficiency by deeply understanding, learning and applying modern technologies. Being tech-literate is no longer a choice.”

In current times, technology and Artificial Intelligence (‘AI’) have become ubiquitous, permeating every significant discussion and infiltrating every dialog that matters.

Be it at the BCAS New Chartered Accountants’ Felicitation event, attended by hundreds of newly qualified Chartered Accountants, or the CA Pariskha pe Charcha webinar, attended by CA students in hordes; the theme of Technology somehow found its way into these leading discussions. So-much-so that when a group of BCAS volunteers visited a BCAS Foundation supported school in Umbergaon, Gujarat, they were spell-bound to see deserving primary school kids making live websites and apps with no-code techniques, powered through the BCAS Digital Classroom initiative. ^[1]

[1] The BCAS Foundation completed an ambitious project of providing Digital Classrooms at various schools. More than 3000 school kids will be beneficiaries of this social initiative.

At the crossroads of these discussions lies our renewed shared realization that wholeheartedly embracing (even better, a bear hug) technology is quintessential for maintaining our professional relevance. A clear reflection of this feature was in the BCAS Membership Survey 2024 where highest number of member respondents rated ‘Impact of Technology’ as the top-most challenge for the profession.

Technology is not alien to us; over the years, both in our personal and professional spheres, we have integrated information technology into our everyday routines. However, the latest advancement in AI promises an even more substantial impact on our lives and careers. OpenAI launched ChatGPT on November 30, 2022. Although ChatGPT is a relatively simple form of AI, it marked a significant step toward understanding AI’s potential to transform not only business but also our everyday activities.

Speculating the impact of AI on businesses, I dare contend that it holds the potential to ignite revolutionary changes. Finding balance in navigating the middle ground between irrational fear—believing AI will render us obsolete—and naive rejection, viewing it merely as a fleeting trend, it is clearly time now to move the needle from questions of ‘Whether’ and ‘Why’ to the more practical considerations of ‘What’ and ‘How’.

The general perspective is that AI will function as an augmentation technology, freeing up our professional time for the critical-thinking tasks that empower us and drive innovation and progress. At the end of the AI wave, a ‘K’-shaped outcome seems emerging, with the adopters benefiting significantly and the ignorant running the risk of professional obsolescence.

AI in finance and accounting is not about replacing accountants; rather, it’s about empowering financial professionals to work smarter, faster, and with unparalleled accuracy. Accountants can leverage AI in various ways to enhance their productivity, accuracy, research and decision-making capabilities. With this emerging technology, the applications of AI and the use-cases in our practices and careers, are only limited by our imagination.

Innovative concepts such as Invisible Accounting (which operates in the background, allowing accountants to focus more on strategic decisions), Continuous Auditing (providing uninterrupted, automated and accurate auditing processes), Active Insight (offering real-time financial visibility for accounting managers and leaders), Smart Documentation (enabling automated documentation and communication with minimal human intervention), Co-Counsel (a virtual research assistant that fills you on facts, figures and judicial precedents, whist you focus on arguments and merits) and Robo Advisor (utilizing language model bots on technical databases to resolve complex client queries without team assistance) are swiftly gaining acceptance.

Although AI, in its present state, might not be able to replace you at your job, the reality is that AI will continue to improve and become more powerful over time, learning increasingly from observing your actions. Coming soon is a contest between You vs. Bot. What steps can we take to reduce the likelihood of being outsourced by machines or replaced by AI? While my guess can be as good as yours, few thought come handy:

i. Being Versatile: It quite seemed a concluded professional debate of a ‘Specialist having an edge over a Generalist’. Whilst this remains largely true, the needle seems to have moved towards more balance. Being a Generalist (or better still, a Versatalist) would mean engaging in solutions over service, which perhaps require elements of judgment, bias into decisions and analyses, an estimation which comes with experience. Building ‘breath’ alongside ‘depth’ certainly seems to have a better odd.

ii. Principle-based vs Process-based: As a chess enthusiast, I was fascinated early on by an AI application when IBM’s Deep Blue easily defeated legendary chess players. Contrasting this triumph, the utilization of AI in self-driving cars and its unpredictable feedback to philosophical questions, appears to follow a pattern. Deep Blue’s dominance in chess arose from its extensive database of historical games and its ability to evaluate millions positions per second, surpassing even the most adept human players. Conversely, AI encounters significant hurdles with automated driving, not because of the inherent complexity of driving, but due to the unpredictable behaviour of human drivers on public roads. In our professional field as well, aligning with the Principle-based approach with possibility of multitude of outcomes, seems to be a wiser. choice than relying on the Process-based approach.

iii. Expertise vs. Efficiency: Conventionally, a professional would strive for mobility from Efficiency-based activities to Expertise-based activities or in absence of it, Experience-based activities. The need for this transition from Efficiency-based activities is further amplified in the face of AI. Being on the side of intellect and intuition is better than on the side of mechanical. Whatever gets ‘process ‘zed can get automated.

Needless to say, we all are a work in progress, and rather than complaining or worrying about a bot replacing me, we will work on staying ahead.

At your Society, a series of initiatives are underway to equip our members to this new reality.

• The BCAS AI Survey was the first step towards getting more granular understanding and awareness levels of AI within our community. Many of us have participated in the AI Survey, and the insights will greatly assist the Society in refining its learning offerings according to the suggestions.
• A unique webinar has been planned on 10th September, 2024 on harnessing the power of Co-Pilot and Co-Pilot Studio alongwith a live demonstration on making your own ChatBot. This program is particularly tailored on use-cases for Professional Services Firms and will be a perfect immersion into your AI powered journey.
• A series of ‘AI pe Charcha’ webinars on AI and its impact on different subjects is being planned by the Technology Initiatives committee for the benefit of our community.
• To talk about the longer-term effects of technology amongst various other themes, one of the finest thought-leaders of our profession, Shri Shailesh Haribhakti will share his thoughts on ‘Profession @ 2047’ at this open-for-all online lecture meeting on September 25, 2024.
• In another first, your Society has entered into a collaboration with IIM-Mumbai towards fostering a unique Professional: Academia partnership. This initiative with focus of research, learning, advocacy and strategic initiative; will also work on the digital angle impacting our professional lives.

As we enter the busy September-October season, lets be on the lookout for tasks, processes and engagements that can be leveraged through automation and tune our energies towards expertise and value additive endeavours.

The ‘learning factory’ at BCAS continues at full steam with an array of events planned across the month. Do refer to the Forthcoming Events section and opt for the event of your choice.