CFOs and other finance leaders have started to look deeper at artificial intelligence as a way to fill expanding talent gaps in areas such as tax and accounting.

But while AI could potentially help to narrow those gaps, leaders need to think carefully about how to put the technology to use — and who is going to be using it, said Daren Campbell, Ernst & Young Americas tax, technology and transformation leader.

Crafting a tech-forward talent strategy is one thing, but it’s important for leaders to pay close attention to how they are training their employees, notably senior accountants, to utilize the tool. While newer entrants to the field may have the AI technical know-how, as the talent pool in the space shrinks, the domain knowledge and “core tax and accounting skill set is more important than ever,” Campbell said.

Experience before AI

AI skills, especially surrounding generative AI, have steadily become a hot commodity for job seekers since the emergence of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in 2022.

In a May study from Microsoft — one of the largest backers of OpenAI — 66% of business leaders said they would not hire candidates without those skills. Seventy-one percent said they would rather hire a candidate with less experience, but with AI skills, than a more experienced candidate that lacks such skills, the study found.

The accounting and tax industries are among those putting a premium on AI competence; in an October study by EY, 87% of tax leaders said integrating GenAI will help them to drive increased efficiency and effectiveness in the function, according to the report.

However, talent shortages in these industries are also “approaching crisis levels,” EY’s survey found, coming as more accountants retire and fewer new candidates enter the field. In the U.S., three-quarters of CPAs reached eligible retirement age in 2019, which comes as the country faces a shortage of 340,000 accountants, EY said.

Finance leaders therefore need to carefully thread a needle, implementing AI where it’s going to be the most effective while also ensuring that they are retaining senior accountants that have critical domain knowledge and experience.

It’s essential for finance leaders to have a clear understanding of what AI models can and can’t do currently — for example, while AI models can be helpful when it comes to aggregating documents or sifting through larger volumes of data, there’s still approximately a three-to-five year horizon before the knowledge senior accountants have will likely be embedded into those models, Campbell said.

“You need to be focused on where you're using AI,” he said. “So, AI is really good at some things, and it's really bad at other things. And I think that's one of the challenges that we've seen with adoption, is we try to level set.”

Tech-forward training  

It’s important for CFOs and finance leaders to develop tech-forward strategies for their accounting processes, and to do so in a way that benefits both senior talent and new entrants.

The talent shortage remains a top concern for leaders: according to EY’s survey, 53% of respondents said both attracting and retaining talent was either an “extensive” or “significant” struggle, for instance. More crucially, 89% said that a lack of talent was “preventing their tax and finance function from delivering on their purpose and vision,” the report said. That’s started to change some of the attitudes financial professionals have surrounding the technology.

“Some of the early discussions that we had around AI, there was always concerns about, ‘does this mean it's taking people's jobs?’” Campbell said. “I think there's been a bit of a shift where most people feel that this is not going to take people's jobs; it's actually going to potentially be one of the levers that we're able to pull on to deal with this challenge of just having fewer accountants in the industry.”

To properly utilize AI, however, finance leaders need to ensure they have the right training materials both for experienced and entry-level talent.

“We need to instruct them more on how to interact, how to coach, how to apply judgment and amend the review,” Campbell said of younger candidates’ training on AI. “And then on the more senior side. [we’ve] found the bigger challenge is just getting people to change the way they do things and be more open and receptive to utilizing any technology.”

AI is also just one potential, though large, lever that leaders can pull to address talent shortages, however. In the face of a narrowing talent pool, leaders are also thinking differently about how they source new talent — looking for backgrounds outside of the traditional financial sphere. According to EY’s survey, 62% of respondents said professionals without a college degree were important to their talent strategy.

Tax professionals are also thinking differently about how to source experienced talent; one way that companies could continue to utilize the knowledge of these experienced accountants is by contracting with those employees for part-time work.

“There are a number of retired partners that we have brought back in as contractors for a period of time,” Campbell said, noting that this trend may accelerate in the coming years as the gap between new entrants to the field and retirees continues to widen.