Difference Makers Podcast
We created this podcast in order to celebrate the lives and work of people who have transformed communities, businesses, and the wider world, making a real difference in the lives of others. We call them "Difference Makers". Some overcame great personal adversity in their journey. They all showed the knowledge, perspective, skills and capabilities to lead, to achieve, and to make real change when it is needed most. Oh, and by the way... they are all Chartered Accountants!
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Difference Makers Podcast
AI and the future of the global Chartered Accountancy profession
In this episode, Chair of Chartered Accountants Worldwide and CEO of CA ANZ, Ainslie van Onselen is joined by Alex Russell, Associate Director at Ipsos Corporate Reputation, unpack the findings of the inaugural global AI research study conducted by CAW in collaboration with IPSOS UK.
Artificial intelligence isn't just changing accounting—it's redefining what it means to be a chartered accountant. We've partnered with Ipsos UK to conduct the first global benchmarking study on AI in accountancy, surveying nearly 3,000 professionals across 48 countries, and the results challenge everything you thought you knew about technology's impact on our profession.
The study reveals a profession eager to embrace AI but held back by two key barriers: a skills gap and concerns about data security. While digital natives demonstrate greater comfort with AI tools, enthusiasm spans all demographics and firm sizes. Importantly, chartered accountants overwhelmingly look to their professional bodies rather than employers to provide the education and guidance needed to navigate this technological revolution.
Far from making accountants obsolete, AI emerges as a powerful ally that elevates the profession. By handling routine, process-driven tasks, AI frees professionals to focus on what truly matters—strategic thinking, critical analysis, and meaningful client relationships. As Alex Russell from Ipsos notes, "There's actually more of a role for accountancy in the future with AI than less." Senior leaders recognize this potential, with C-suite executives particularly concerned that adoption isn't happening quickly enough.
The study outlines clear pathways to implementation, emphasizing clear objectives, proper governance, and comprehensive training. For professional bodies and firms alike, the message is unmistakable—invest now or risk falling behind. Those who successfully navigate this transition will transform the accounting experience for both professionals and clients, making the profession more attractive to younger generations by eliminating drudgery and emphasizing purpose-driven, strategic work.
Ready to transform your practice? Download the full report from the Chartered Accountants Worldwide website and discover how AI can become your competitive advantage in a rapidly evolving profession.
Welcome to our special episode of Difference Makers Discuss. Earlier this month, Chartered Accountants Worldwide, in collaboration with Ipsos UK, launched our inaugural global AI research study. This groundbreaking report is based on almost 3,000 respondents across 48 countries from 13 professional chartered accountancy institutes, Underscoring AI's transformative impact on the chartered accountancy profession. The report provides deep insights into AI adoption. Importantly, it also highlights the opportunities and challenges as we harness its power to augment professional skills and practice. Joining me today is Alex Russell. Alex is an Associate Director at Ipsos Corporate Reputation, working mainly on financial and professional services clients. Together, we'll explore the key findings of this research and what they mean for the future of chartered accountants worldwide. Alex, thank you for joining us.
Alex Russell:Thanks very much for having me, Ainsley, and you're right, this was the first, uh, kind of global benchmarking project that we were doing to see how artificial intelligence is being implemented in accountancy and I think from that perspective, we really wanted to understand, firstly, what is the state of implementation currently in the profession? Uh, how widely is it adopted, um across the institutes that we were speaking with, and really what are the risks and opportunities that chartered accountants are feeling in the process of adopting AI and, from that, where there might be areas to focus, moving forward to encourage more adoption through education programs, concerns around security, ethics. So really it was to get a broad understanding of how child accountants are feeling at this time.
Ainslie van Onselen:And where did you land with that? Did you sense a feeling of hesitation by the child accounting profession? Was there sort of some demographic issues involved, or is there an embracing of it? What was your take from that?
Alex Russell:well, I think it was really positive. Actually there was a really um overwhelming sense of willingness from, uh, the findings in the survey that chartered accountants do want to implement ai, want to work with ai in their profession and and there were some demographic differences so we saw it skew towards the younger age groups who were more willing, but still across all the demographics there is a high willingness to implement it and to take it as part of their professional role. So the kind of the onus is now with that finding to really work out how it can be implemented going forward and how that can best be done.
Ainslie van Onselen:Yeah, so with younger members of the professions. I think you said then that they seem more willing to embrace AI. Why do you think that is? Is it because they're digitally native and they've just grown up in that environment? Or is it a perception issue? Why do you think that might be the case?
Alex Russell:so I think it is down to just the fact that the younger generation have been from their first kind of education at primary school. Those who are under 25 really have been surrounded by technology and everything they do, and we've already seen that develop further as that generation's moved up through the age group. So really I think it's just more a sense of comfort with technology and also maybe more exposure to the possibilities of what AI can bring beyond work. They've just seen that there is so much potential in this and just excitement around adopting it and recognising the benefits that it can have to them in life and work.
Ainslie van Onselen:I've got two daughters 16 and 18, and they definitely adopt it to the extent that they're allowed to, but their school has actually encouraged them to use it in a kind of safe space type of way. And then, of course, we've got Gen Alpha coming up, which are sort of around 13 and under, and some studies that I saw suggested that Gen Z and Gen Alpha will be making up about 50% of the employee workforce by 2035 or 2033 or so.
Ainslie van Onselen:So you can see this massive kind of generational shift where there'll be all these generations in accounting firms. What about large firms? Where are they at in terms of adopting or embracing AI?
Alex Russell:So I think there's just by virtue of having more resources behind them they can get slightly ahead. But still, even when we broke down the findings by size of organisation, there were some differences at certain questions, but in terms of kind of willingness to use it and concerns around it, there's actually quite an even spread really.
Ainslie van Onselen:Right, okay, that's interesting to know. So, in terms of if we go to the flip side, from those that are willing to embrace it to those that feel a sense of hesitation, what do you think are the barriers for childhood accountants in adopting AI? What do you think are the main barriers?
Alex Russell:So I think there are three really well, two really key barriers around education or a lack of skills, which obviously translates as a hesitancy to use it If you're worried, you won't use it effectively. But then there's also the concern around the ethical use of data and data security, which we saw through other areas of the survey that, if they were addressed, could really encourage uptake. But I think the main barrier that was coming through really is the skills gap and the kind of not having the confidence to apply it properly.
Ainslie van Onselen:So that sort of naturally leads to where do professional accounting organisations, which is what the Chartered Accounting Network? We represent 16 CA bodies around the world, or 1.8 million chartered accountants. What role do you think they play in this and what role do you think firms play in training their employees? Well, this was really interesting actually. Do you think firms play in training their employees.
Alex Russell:Well, this was really interesting. Actually, we found through the survey that the expectation and this is across all sizes of organisations, so those who work for the big four and down to those who work in kind of under-10 employee accountancy firms the expectation is unanimously on the institutes to provide education, um, the employer not so much. However, when we broke it down by size of organization, the um, the bigger the organization, the higher the expectation on the employer to provide to provide that uh, training, and I think that that's a natural correlation of just resources behind those firms. But unanimously, the institutes are expected to play that role and the vehicle that they're expected to play that in is through the Certificates of Professional Development. So it's really incorporating how AI can be used in accountancy within the qualifications that the institutes are providing.
Ainslie van Onselen:It's the hot topic at the moment, isn't it Really AI? And it's not a fad, it's not a trend. It's definitely here to stay. I think the last 18 months has shown that. I'm the CEO of Child Accountants Australia in New Zealand, and we've just launched, or will be launching very soon, our strategy for the next few years.
Ainslie van Onselen:Launch, or will be launching very soon, our strategy for the next few years, and AI takes a huge part of that in terms of equipping our members to be able to have the AI mindset and how they can use it, with human-centered design attached to it, or human-centered AI, and also us as an organization how can we adapt and be agile? So setting up things like AI hubs, ai masterclasses for our members, using AI in our CA program as well, and even looking at it for assessment how can we streamline our assessment using AI and I'm sure, with this and post this podcast, we'll be able to probably share some of those resources and materials for the border network as well, the border CAW family, as we like to call it. You mentioned if I can just pause there for a moment you mentioned about the issue or concern about security, and I assume that's probably a data security issue or a cyber security issue? How do you think firms or even PAOs, professional accounting organisations can address that? What's your advice there?
Alex Russell:Well, I think underpinning that is maybe a lack of understanding about how people, how much risk you're exposed to by using some of these products, the AI products there is, of course, the kind of ones available to any consumer that are free, that are a risk because, by virtue of using them, you're allowing them to use the data you input to kind of continue developing their tools and there's like an IP potential exploiter there as well, because you're putting potentially IP that you've spent a lot of time and energy and resources creating, yeah, and there's a value to that.
Ainslie van Onselen:If you put that into those open source data networks, that is a challenge.
Alex Russell:Exactly and also we spoke to some who were just not willing to take the risk of obviously they've got payroll data, client details and it was just considered too risky to use these tools are used but also an education in which tools are safe, which aren't, and just a kind of underpinning of reassurance that these products will help and there are risks accounted for.
Ainslie van Onselen:So there's a massive amount of training and almost an AI knowledge blitz. I think that the profession needs to do so, both from an employer firm's perspective but also us as professional accounting organisations. So that's really exciting. I think I mean accounting and AI sort of go together, I think, as a natural fit. So if I look at, I think some of the findings in the report showed a massive amount of interest in AI. I mean, you can barely pick up a newspaper or a magazine article or a trade manual or something without referencing to it.
Ainslie van Onselen:But a little bit of a disconnect between kind of knowing about it as a vague kind of subject as opposed to actually implementing it. So do you have any tips there? And before you do, I might share a story there. And before you do, I might share a story. So I read about six months ago an article in the Economist which said that men were far more likely to adopt or be early adopters of AI than women, including female senior leaders. And I read that and went well, that's me.
Ainslie van Onselen:So since that point, and I particularly had a New Year's resolution that I would use AI every single day, and I have. We're lucky enough to have it in a safe environment at CINZ and we use different training and different platforms, et cetera, and it has actually really made my life easier, more productive. I pretty much use it in my emails, and something that you might like is that people have said that AI won't be as empathetic or won't be as kind, but I found I don't know what this says about me, but I found that my emails have become friendlier when I use AI and a little bit more connecting. So I think that's probably more a note to myself, but anyway, leaving that aside, how do you think we can sort of bridge this gap between being aware of it, knowing that this huge you know, massive thing is about to come and hit the profession, and actually implementing it?
Alex Russell:Yeah, well, I think there's two things to think about on that. Firstly is thinking back to the CAW family as you described it. It's a really good opportunity for knowledge sharing across institutes and collaboration on what will be essentially a seismic kind of change in the industry. So I think, and we did see, that there's some institutes that are kind of slightly further along the road than others. So I think it's a really good chance for people to come together once this report's kind of landed and everyone's been able to digest the results, and to do that knowledge sharing and see what works and what hasn't, and try and kind of encourage it through the other institutes.
Alex Russell:The second point is to bridge that kind of gap of willingness to actually application is, if we look at some of the results that came from the senior leaders, so we asked a question around whether and they thought that adoption was was going fast enough to keep up with just kind of industry trends, and generally the result was no.
Alex Russell:But what was really interesting was that it was the C-suite respondents who actually over-indexed for that. So the leaders of firms and organizations more of them thought in the general kind of sample that things weren't moving fast enough, but on the flip side, they're the people who can make the decisions to speed it up. So it comes down to investment decisions to kind of, yeah, to provide the resources. So really it's really just focusing and it really is one of the clearest findings from the, from the results. It's just focusing on that investment in skills to really bring people, that investment in skills to really bring people up to the same level really in terms of matching their willingness to apply AI in their work to actually having the resources and the functions to do it.
Ainslie van Onselen:Yeah.
Ainslie van Onselen:So it's kind of a mindset shift as much as anything, and I think I really like your point about, as part of the CAW family, making making sure that and that's one of the benefits of this network right, that's been in place for decades now, is that we do share best practice. It's not just about the brand of childhood accountant, it's that capacity building, because you know we've got members who have hundreds of thousands of members. We have others who have a smaller number of membership and perhaps more restrained resources. So having that consistent thought leadership, investing in reports like the Ipsos AI report, I think is a really great value add in terms of the network. And if I might just shift just slightly in terms of I think the report mentioned accountants as being data guardians, and so, if I look at or ask you, what do you think the role of accountants is in this context? So, moving away from using it ourselves, but helping the clients and customers that our members work with, how can they sort of use, you know, become data champions or data guardians if you like?
Alex Russell:So I think one of the really interesting kind of overall findings that came out of this is to encourage the idea that there's actually more of a role for accountancy in the future with ai than less, because often people kind of fear monger around ai it's going to take jobs, but what we saw was that there's a really firm belief that by utilizing AI to become more efficient in terms of more process-y tasks that accountancy might include, it frees up space for really talented people to think constructively and strategically about how they can bring most value to their clients and customers, and so I think the report actually kind of ends on quite an optimistic note that, if anything, just counters will become more important in business moving forward as data guardians, um, because it that is going to allow them to be more strategic in their thinking and spend more of their time that the clients and customers are paying for thinking actually how we can help the client more than just certain tasks that they've had to work on previously.
Ainslie van Onselen:Well, I think that's music, probably to all our listeners today. I think Jeremy Hunt, a significant senior political leader in the UK, said recently and was quoted, I think, in the Financial Times as saying that there won't be any accounting jobs, which has been this myth now that keeps circulating. Every time there's this wave of technology, all the accountants won't have any jobs and in fact, accounting is becoming more sophisticated. It's very different to what we thought it might have been or what perhaps careers counsellors think it is, or business educators or even parents, for example, who are thinking about what their kids should do. The concept of an accountant has absolutely been redefined and, to your point, it's much more value adding, much more strategic and looking forward as opposed to looking backwards, which was the traditional role of an accountant.
Alex Russell:I think, just to pick up on another point, ed, despite what Jeremy Hunt may have said, ai in and of itself isn't valuable unless there's human intelligence to interpret it and probe it correctly and really make the most use of it. So I mean, yeah, I really disagree with the idea that AI is going to take all the jobs and there's no value in having kind of a human element to it now, and in fact we saw that, and that belief is true as well, across the people we interviewed.
Alex Russell:That's good yeah, and they think that no matter how you know how far along AI is developing, you can never quite replace that human element that really adds that added value.
Ainslie van Onselen:And I mean at least for the significant foreseeable future. You need a human to validate the information and the output.
Ainslie van Onselen:The worst thing would be to happen is just accept what AI might produce, because it still does have hallucinations and things of that nature. So I mean I think that will continue. And then also you need someone to be able to interpret it to the clients and users of accounting services and that will always, I think, be in train. Just in terms of whether you've got any comments in the fact that it's probably unlikely that governments are going to spend money equipping its populations in AI upskilling, we saw a little bit during COVID. I think there were a few subsidies, at least in Australia and New Zealand, to help people do training and further upskilling. So in that context one, do you agree with me on that observation? And then again, I guess it's this what's the role of employers, firms, professional accounting organisations in taking up the slack, if you like?
Alex Russell:Well, I think it is going to be incumbent on the firms and the institutes to do this. Obviously there will be, I'm sure, policy developing around AI from governments across the world as it becomes more kind of ubiquitous in business. But really the expectation will be that or it's incumbent on the profession itself to kind of invest and upskill, and we saw in the findings that senior leaders accepted that if that investment isn't there in five years, if that investment isn't there within one company and is within another within five years, the one who's not invested will be left behind. So it's crucial to invest.
Ainslie van Onselen:So that's a really good segue to the report, touches on sort of effective AI training and it references sort of pathways to AI adoption. Could you summarize for our listeners of the podcast sort of what the key platforms to that AI adoption are?
Alex Russell:So we broke it down into certain steps, but to summarize it would be you've got to have a clear understanding of what you're trying to achieve at the outset. You've got to have a structure to how you can then test that or at least go to market to look for what problem you're trying to solve with AI. You've then got to be very clear on the governance of how it's going to be applied within the business, just to avoid any ethical challenges or data security challenges that we've already discussed. And then it's to have a structured pathway of rolling it out across your business, however far that it may want to be rolled out, but also making sure that it's rolled out with supporting education to utilize it effectively. And in the report we've got a very structured kind of pathway of how that's done in various different um types of business where we we had kind of in-depth interviews with people who had successfully applied it.
Ainslie van Onselen:So there's scenario, cases, use cases that our members and listeners can refer to, and we'll have the report linked to the publication of this podcast, so we would definitely recommend people to read it in its entirety. In terms of jurisdictional differences, so you'll have some countries, just like you said, some large firms adopting earlier the small firms. The same will occur with different nations, for example, that will be more quick to adopt than not. Do you see a risk of further sort of sovereign wealth disparity as a result, or what are your tips in terms of how can different countries support other countries in this adoption?
Alex Russell:Well, I think there's always going to be that challenge of regulations being different in some areas than others. That's a good point. So there's never going to be a one sizesize-fits-all, I guess, approach to it. But what I think there is is consistent and common themes that can be applied regardless of regulation in terms of an approach to integrating AI and applying it successfully, and I think that will be consistent across region, consistent across um region. There will be so. For instance, in europe we have um, a pre-regulated digital um world, versus some regions where it's not quite so regulated. So there's always going to be those kind of road bumps in in trying to apply what the kind of universal approach. But there's going. There will be those themes that are consistent for every business or region that can again, by coming together and kind of knowledge sharing, can be learned and applied successfully.
Ainslie van Onselen:Okay, and that's I mean, that's definitely what the CAEW network does. We have, as I mentioned, 16 countries and we all share best practice there in terms of what some people are doing and not doing across the board, not just in relation to AI. In terms of what some people are doing and not doing across the board, not just in relation to AI. In terms of ethical considerations of AI. How do you see that playing out in terms of ensuring even that you know the algorithms supporting it are not gender biased, or that there is an ethical lens or overlay to AI? What's your perspective on that?
Alex Russell:Well, I think it will be a challenge going forward to try and ensure that AI is balanced. We've seen, and slightly discussed already, hallucinations you can get fake data. I think what's really important is a very strict and structured governance system and then validation system to ensure that, as best as you can, you're compliant with laws and respecting private data that you may receive from clients or customers, and then running validation tests to ensure that kind of or keeping up with the latest products in terms of data security and just trying to avoid those kind of hallucinations that can be damaging.
Ainslie van Onselen:Yeah, I mean, I guess it's a matter of to know whether something's ethical or not. You kind of have to understand it. So it's imperative, particularly on leaders of organizations, to really roll up their sleeves and use it themselves, get to know what the opportunities are, but also what the risk factors are, and have that incorporated in their risk strategies. We touched on this when I referenced the Jeremy Hunt quote. But do you think AI is going to make accounting more attractive to the younger generation? Is it more of an opportunity than a threat? What's your view on this?
Alex Russell:Yeah, I do. I do because the really attractive elements of accounting seems to be, from the findings, that being that consultant, being creative with your thinking, critical thinking, strategic and those are the upside of implementing AI effectively that you'll be able to do more of that. So I think the challenge not only is in terms of future talent, is not only incorporating AI into the business so that you're prepared for the kind of digital natives coming through, but it's a communications challenge as well, because it's communicating what the future of chartered accountancy is, with AI being adopted and how it is fundamentally going to change and more time will be spent doing the strategic, creative Rather than the grunt work that young auditors used to have to do for zero to five years.
Ainslie van Onselen:Well, we also know from our previous studies that CIW have done that people are either dreaming about what their career might be, are very purpose orientated. So connecting AI with purpose, particularly in relation to sustainability, reporting and assurance, I think is also a key element. But, yeah, anything that makes their jobs easier, not harder, not harder. I used to be a lawyer and my first two years were stuck in some kind of basement dungeon, just going through piles and piles and piles of documents. I mean it was great fun because you got to know your peers and you saw some leadership in action or not by your senior leaders, but it was really unnecessary and I think by the late nineties, completely overtaken by technology, we still need as many lawyers as we did before, and I think the same thing applies to accounting. It takes out that sort of drudgery work and makes it much more exciting and attractive. In terms of key trends in AI, is there anything you're seeing that we haven't touched on already today?
Alex Russell:Not really. I think the main trend I guess, if we look at it from outside charts and accountancy is that it's really the same kind of overriding issues are present in other industries. It's upskilling and data security is a massive one. So I think it's a shift, not just for charts accountants but for business in general is getting ahead of this and preparing future talent to yeah, in the same way that, I guess, in the 90s when word processing became prevalent yeah, we all had to go, they had computer, yeah, and we were learning people well maybe not you, but me.
Alex Russell:I did it at primary school, in the same way that that you know, people came through with the skills after a decade or so. That's going to be the case, um, for every business. So, uh, it's, yeah, it's just a case of dealing with those overriding concerns. Yeah, and once that reassurance is there, I think it will really take off yeah even more than has.
Ainslie van Onselen:And so if there's one key takeout our members and listeners can take from the report, from the Ipsos report that was commissioned by Child Accountants Worldwide, what would it be Last and final word.
Alex Russell:I think, to summarize, the key takeout would be there's a massive willingness to use this. There's a skills gap that's preventing people from using it. This, the. There's a skills gap that's preventing people from using it.
Ainslie van Onselen:But if it is used effectively.
Alex Russell:There's confidence and optimism that the future of the profession is going to be really exciting and we'll be able to add more value to clients and customers than they already can. So it's incumbent on the leaders of the industry to really get behind it and invest in it and watch it take off really.
Ainslie van Onselen:Hear, hear Well, done Well. Thank you for joining us, alex, it's been an absolute pleasure. This report is a crucial step in helping chartered accountants worldwide understand and navigate AI's impact on our profession. To our viewers, the report is available now. Scan the QR code for direct access to the report or head over to the Chartered Accountants Worldwide website. We encourage you to explore the findings, consider how AI fits into your professional journey and engage with your institute on training and support. Thanks for watching and see you next time on Difference Makers Discuss.
