Artificial intelligence

The AI revolution is well underway, driving unparalleled progress in business and finance. Microsoft Ireland CFO Áine Nolan shares her experiences and insights Artificial intelligence (AI) represents a valuable opportunity for Ireland to enhance our productivity and solidify our digital leadership in Europe.  This is according to Áine Nolan, FCA and Chief Financial Officer with Microsoft Ireland, who spoke at the recent Chartered Accountants Ireland Technology Conference, about how AI is revolutionising the finance function and driving unprecedented efficiencies.  “We have a thriving tech scene in Ireland, a highly educated workforce and really smart government policies. We can really become a hub for AI advancements,” Nolan said. The potential is significant, driven by the rapid emergence of AI as a commercial proposition and its popularity with users in both their lives and work. “The rate of AI adoption currently is somewhat unprecedented,” said Nolan. “Generative AI is capturing, distributing and democratising intelligence for everyone and that is a powerful concept.”  AI uptake in Ireland Microsoft Ireland recently partnered with Trinity College Dublin Business School to conduct research into the uptake of generative AI in the Irish market. Published in March 2024, the Generative AI in Ireland 2024 report found that 49 percent of respondents were already using the technology in some form in their organisation. “This research is less than a year old and already out of date, which just shows you how fast the rate of uptake is. We are due to release new research in March this year, which shows that adoption rates have since risen to about 70 percent,” Nolan said. Despite its proliferation in Irish workplaces, not all employers are, as yet, fully equipped to manage the implications of the AI age. “Through our research with Trinity, we have found that employees are bringing their own AI to work, with or without their employer’s consent. This ‘shadow’ gen AI culture creates risks for employers who really need to have guardrails in place,” Nolan said. “There is also sometimes a view that AI is just an add-on productivity tool you can slot into your existing workflows, but this fundamentally underestimates the magnitude of behavioural change and organisational transformation needed to unlock its value.” It will take time and a great deal of change management to integrate AI successfully as a new dimension of work, Nolan said. “People often make the mistake of simply asking how they can apply AI to their existing processes, but, fundamentally, they should be asking what they need AI to do and how it can make their processes more efficient or facilitate innovation—even creating a new service for our customers, for example.” The dawn of the AI agent Although many people currently use AI as a kind of “virtual assistant”, helping with everyday tasks, such as organising their work calendar or automating note-taking during meetings, the technology is set to assume a far more prominent and proactive role. “In the future, AI will operate on your behalf—as an agent—allowing you to eliminate tasks from your plate altogether,” Nolan explained. “This might mean making autonomous decisions for your IT helpdesk and, eventually, managing your full device refresh, from examining your POs right through to ordering new devices, checking your budgets and getting the necessary human approvals at the end of the process.  “A more complex example might involve AI looking after lead generation for your business by sourcing and emailing potential customers or acting as a customer support agent in a much more complex way than a chatbot, where it is actually making decisions on behalf of your organisation.” Microsoft and AI in finance Already, Nolan and her finance team at Microsoft Ireland are reaping the benefits of the organisation-wide implementation of the software giant’s AI technology. “Our global CFO Amy Hood consistently challenges our finance team to use our own technology to improve our processes. Her mantra is really clear—by adopting innovative technologies, finance will strengthen its business leadership through compliance, accuracy and efficiency.” And, as CFOs across all organisations assume an increasingly strategic business role, AI will become even more fundamental to their work day-to-day. “The role of the CFO is changing rapidly and, as finance leaders, we need to play a lead role in developing a clear AI strategy, ensuring our organisations have the necessary capability, technology and stakeholder buy-in. The rate of AI adoption is unprecedented and we need to be ready,” Nolan said. “In the last 12 months alone, I have seen big changes in how our own AI at Microsoft has been able to generate intelligent comments for us, as we work through our balance sheet and P&L variance analysis,” Nolan said. “We have had a big win in the efficiency of our contract review process, where we once had a full revenue recognition team analysing all of our contracts to account for them. “Now, we have AI reading 10,000 contracts a year and sorting them into low-, medium- and high-risk categories for us.” This means the revenue recognition team is only required to review high-risk contracts manually.  “We’ve had other big wins in journal entry anomaly detection, which has helped reduce risk on our financial statement—and our AI is now able to produce the first draft of the statement, reducing time spent on this work by about 15 percent.” Microsoft’s generative AI is creating models that recognise patterns in the financial planning and analysis data used to predict outcomes. “We’ve moved from bottom-up to top-down budgeting, reducing time spent on budgeting analysis from six months to six weeks,” Nolan said.  “This means we have much more time to think strategically and analytically—and to have a seat at the table in terms of our influence in the wider organisation. For us, AI is well and truly here.”

Liam Cotter charts the road ahead and critical importance of data for Irish organisations preparing for the AI revolution Right now, many organisations are experiencing caution, confusion—or both—in relation to artificial intelligence (AI). They are unsure about generative AI (GenAI), how it differs from previous AI iterations, and whether it can add value for them. With the first milestones of the European Union’s AI Act due to come into force in February 2025, focused on prohibiting AI systems posing unacceptable risk, organisations are concerned about falling foul of regulation. They are keen to ensure that any AI model introduced to help their business, undergoes rigorous testing to ensure it is fair and doesn’t have bias baked in. There are also more generalised fears regarding the cost of moving too quickly and developing the wrong solutions, however, as well as the “opportunity cost” of moving too slowly and thus failing to capture the benefits of the right opportunities. Data-based decisions Regardless of what stage an organisation has reached in its adoption of AI and GenAI, one thing holds true: the key to success is data. The only way to ensure quality AI outputs is to provide quality inputs. The way we manage and store data for the AI age differs from how we have done so in the past. Thus, even though the same fundamental rules apply, your data capture and entry systems may not be robust enough to handle AI demands and this could put you at a competitive disadvantage. Part of the problem with readying your data for AI transformation is the sheer amount of hard work involved, which may not appear not to offer a lot of value. This is because this work involves run-of-the-mill data generated from day-to-day operations. The key to the successful adoption of AI tomorrow is ensuring everybody in your organisation is aware of data management today. It is about ensuring everyone is measuring the quality of their data right across the organisation so they can stand over what it presents. For organisations that previously placed little value on the data they generate, this shift will require a culture change. It may also require different parts of the organisation to pool data—such as combining sales and stock databases rather than keeping them siloed, for example. In companies involved in mergers and acquisitions, it means ensuring you fully understand your data's lineage. The time to act is now The past 12 months have seen a growing realisation among organisations of the potential importance of AI as a lever for competitiveness. It is increasingly viewed as a valuable tool to drive digital transformation, enabling them to become more flexible, be faster to market, provide a better customer experience and more. Most of what AI will do has yet to be “dreamed up”. To put its scale in context, somewhere in the world, a data centre—the building block that powers the AI revolution—opens every two days. Organisations need to act to keep up. The first step is understanding the regulations and timeframes that are being rolled out under the EU AI Act. Next, identify use cases and develop them. Experiment—and if you are going to fail, fail fast. Get involved and discover the value in AI. People-powered data Understand the behavioural risks, too.  A lot of the work involved isn’t about technology at all. It’s about people. You can introduce the best technology in the world, but it's useless if staff don’t collect, curate and manage their data correctly. Everyone in your organisation must be able to stand by the accuracy of their data, which means good data practices must be applied to all business processes. In many organisations, this means investing in data capabilities, including staff training, and appointing a Chief Data Officer responsible for driving data literacy and good data management practices throughout the organisation, from the bottom to the top. To succeed, data management must be seen as a core, valuable component of what everyone does, regardless of their role. Break down the barriers Barriers to achieving effective AI readiness include an organisational culture that hasn’t yet caught up with the importance of data, allied to poor systems and processes that ensure people don’t understand the implications of getting it wrong. The real barrier is, however, that all of this takes work. Readying your data systems for AI is a pain, and sometimes, people can see no value in it. Once you can stand over your data, knowing it is of good quality and understanding its lineage, your organisation will likely be in pretty good shape because you can then move on and digitise your key business processes with confidence. The AI revolution starts and ends with data. Don’t underestimate the effort required to get good quality, well-managed data. It is the foundational work that cannot be avoided. Equally, don’t underestimate the impact. Once you have good data systems in place, you can confidently move forward and capture the full breadth of AI benefits that await.  Liam Cotter is Technology Practice Lead at KPMG

AI is revolutionising accountancy by automating routine tasks, enhancing data analysis and providing valuable insights for strategic decision-making. Conor Flanagan explains how Artificial intelligence (AI) has emerged as a transformative force across various industries and accountancy is no exception. As AI technologies advance, they are reshaping the accounting landscape by enhancing efficiency, accuracy and strategic decision-making.  The emergence of AI can be traced back to the 1950s when pioneers like Alan Turing began exploring the concept of machine intelligence.  Turing’s famous “Turing Test” proposed that a machine could be considered intelligent if it could engage in conversation with a human without being distinguishable from a human interlocutor. Since the 1950s, AI has continued to evolve through different phases, including the notable period in the 1970s known as the “AI Winter” when there was a significant fall-off in funding and interest in the technology.  Since then, and coinciding with advances in computational power coupled with the development of machine learning algorithms, interest in AI has been reignited, with breakthroughs in natural language processing, computer vision and data analytics paving the way for more practical applications.  This progress, although impressive, has been somewhat dwarfed by the advent of Generative AI in recent years, with companies like OpenAI and its now infamous ChatGPT platform sparking widespread interest in the technology and its potential.  Generative AI has given rise to exciting new systems now capable of performing complex tasks, such as image recognition, language translation and content creation. And for the sceptics among us – no, this article was not written by ChatGPT. The Microsoft experience AI is revolutionising accountancy by automating routine tasks, enhancing data analysis and providing valuable insights for strategic decision-making. At the recent Chartered Accountant Technology Conference, held in January 2024, Daragh Hennelly, Senior Finance Director with Microsoft in Ireland, shared the story of how the company is unlocking business value through AI-enabled outcomes in finance. Microsoft began its AI journey over seven years ago, leveraging traditional AI to create models that could recognise patterns in data and use this to predict and act on potential outcomes, driving significant efficiency gains. Some examples include: Task automation and content creation Microsoft is using AI to automate tasks such as setting up purchase orders and logging expense reports. Streamlining processes and reducing risks Invoice approvals: AI assigns real-time risk scores to automate more than one million low-risk invoices and cuts the manual effort required for the rest by 50 percent, resulting in 125,000 hours of time saved for finance team members who can now use that time to focus on more strategic tasks. Journal entry anomaly detection: Machine learning algorithms have been built to review thousands of journal entries to detect anomalies with the aim of reducing reporting risks or misstatements.  Enhancing contract review efficiency: AI reads and scores thousands of contracts, reducing the time needed for manual review by 50 percent and allowing finance professionals to focus on high-risk contracts. The recurring theme in all these examples is how AI can be deployed to either automate manual tasks previously carried out by Microsoft’s finance team or unearth and present anomalies requiring additional review.  This demonstrates how AI can create efficiencies in finance functions and processes, but as accountants, we still need to be professionally trained to make decisions based on a smaller and more focused sample base.Over the past 18 months, in particular, the opportunity to transform business and finance processes has accelerated with the roll-out of Generative AI and its ability to create original content – such as text, images, video, audio or software code – in response to user prompts and requests. Today, Microsoft is adopting Generative AI to further enhance processes and unlock business value. This opportunity can be categorised across four main areas: Summarise information. Generate content. Recommend actions. Simplify tasks. 1. Summarise information Recap meeting transcripts to capture key points and assign actions. Distil collection agents’ call notes into actionable plans. Flag key terms in contracts related to payments, pricing and discounts. Synthesise complex workflow documents to highlight handoffs and commonalities. Summarise earnings scripts to identify significant trends and highlights. 2. Generate content Draft financial close decks and write analytical comments and insights. Write contractual language based on simple notes. Draft collection calls and follow-up emails in different languages with payment plan details. Write initial internal audit reports and investor relations earnings call scripts. Produce market sentiment analysis using transcripts from corporate earnings calls and central banking authorities. 3. Recommend actions Analyse financial close variances and recommend areas of the business to investigate variance drivers. Define collection strategy based on customer payment history. Evaluate audit workpapers and resolution disputes against audit controls.  Guide users in setting up purchase orders, invoices, expenses and payments. Recommend policy adherence within workflows. 4. Simplify tasks Accelerate financing requests by automating credit checks and policy reviews. Review sourcing contracts to ensure compliance and reduce human error.  Automate Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) operational controls and summarise insights. Prioritise collection emails, tag disputes and identify resolution owners. Streamline tax and customs procedures by identifying compliance obligations from different global jurisdictions. Central to the success of this transformation of finance at Microsoft is a strong culture of encouraging and rewarding employees to leverage new technologies to transform finance processes. As Amy Hood, Microsoft’s Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, puts it, “by adopting innovative technologies, finance will strengthen its business leadership through compliance, accuracy and efficiency.”   Microsoft is at the forefront of the Generative AI wave, advancing ideas of what is possible and investing in AI solutions such as CoPilot. CoPilot is integrated into Microsoft’s applications (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and Teams), working alongside the user with the aim of helping them to work more creatively and efficiently.  It is also enhancing business application products such as Power Platform, Business Central and Dynamics Sales, facilitating advanced data analytics and the creation of complex workflows using natural language that would previously have required the intervention of a developer.  AI’s other early adopters Outside Microsoft, there are other examples of organisations that have successfully implemented AI in their accounting processes, demonstrating the technology’s practical benefits in our field.  HSBC The multinational banking and financial services company has implemented AI to enhance its fraud detection capabilities. HSBC’s AI system analyses transaction data in real-time, identifying suspicious activities and flagging potential fraud cases. This has resulted in a substantial reduction in fraudulent transactions and improved security for customers. Xero The cloud-based accounting software provider uses AI to automate bookkeeping and financial reporting tasks for small and medium-sized businesses. Xero’s AI-driven platform can categorise transactions, reconcile bank statements and generate financial reports, saving time and reducing the risk of errors for business owners. AI and ethical risk While AI offers numerous benefits to the accounting profession, it also raises some ethical concerns. These issues must be carefully considered to ensure the responsible use of AI in accountancy. Data privacy and security AI systems rely on vast amounts of data to function effectively. This raises concerns about data privacy and security, as sensitive financial information may be at risk of unauthorised access or misuse. Organisations must implement robust data protection measures to safeguard against data breaches and ensure compliance with privacy regulations. Bias and fairness AI algorithms are only as unbiased as the data they are trained on. If the training data contains biases, the AI system may produce biased or unfair outcomes. This is particularly concerning in areas such as fraud detection and financial forecasting, where biased algorithms could lead to discriminatory practices. It is essential to ensure that AI systems are trained on diverse and representative datasets to minimise bias and promote fairness. Transparency and accountability AI systems often operate as “black boxes,” making it difficult to understand how they arrive at their decisions. This lack of transparency can be problematic in the context of financial reporting and auditing, where accountability is crucial. Organisations must strive to develop explainable AI models that provide clear insights into their decision-making processes. AI and the work of the accountant The automation of routine accounting tasks through AI has raised concerns about job displacement and the future of the accounting profession.  While AI can handle repetitive and mundane tasks, it cannot replace the strategic thinking and judgment accountants bring to the table.  That said, accountants may need to adapt to new roles and develop new skills to remain relevant in an AI-driven landscape. Like electricity, the roll-out of AI will have a major impact on every industry and many professions, but only those who embrace it will learn to harness its power. Accountants must be prepared to adapt to the changing landscape by acquiring new skills and knowledge. Continuous learning and professional development will be essential for accountants to thrive in an AI-driven world. This includes gaining proficiency in data analytics, machine learning and other emerging technologies. Rather than viewing AI as a threat, accountants should embrace it as a valuable tool that can augment their capabilities. By leveraging AI to handle routine tasks, accountants can focus on higher-value activities, such as strategic planning, financial analysis and advisory services. AI is undeniably transforming the field of accountancy, offering numerous benefits in terms of efficiency, accuracy and strategic decision-making.  From automated data entry and fraud detection to financial forecasting and auditing, AI is revolutionising traditional accounting processes. Its widespread adoption also raises important ethical questions, however. To fully realise the potential of AI while addressing this challenge, organisations must prioritise ethical considerations while also investing in reskilling and upskilling their people and fostering collaboration between humans and AI.  By doing so, the accounting profession can harness the power of AI to drive innovation and deliver greater value to clients and stakeholders. If you have found this article interesting, join us for the next Chartered Accountants Ireland Technology Conference on Friday 24 January 2025. Conor Flanagan is ERP Lead with Storm Technology and a member of the Technology Committee of Chartered Accountants Ireland