Not enough AI-skilled finance professionals to fulfil demand: IMA India head

Bengaluru: Founded over a century ago, the Institute of Management Accountants (IMA) is a global association of accountants and financial professionals in business. The body offers globally-recognised certifications, along with micro-credentials like data analytics and visualisation in order to support the climb onto the artificial intelligence (AI) bandwagon as demand for the specific skill-set grows among finance professionals. In a conversation with DH’s Anushree Pratap, Arindam Ghosh, Country Head – India, IMA, explains how within a few years, AI will become predominant in all finance companies. Edited excerpts:

Accounting bodies have for long flagged a shortfall in accounting professionals with many choosing more attractive fields like consulting or investment. Is AI making a change?

Automation is definitely helping to minimise the gap to a large extent. Yes, there is a definite gap which is getting created in the so-called accounting professionals but now, the interesting part is that over the last 2-3 years, finance professionals have started bouncing back - with a vengeance, if may I say so. There is presently a good pool. Now, we need to align traditional accounting and existing finance systems with AI.

How are expectations from clients changing? What hiring changes have you observed?

The clients or the corporates across definitely want future-ready professionals. Even for entry-level positions, they are looking at a lot of AI-driven skills in finance professionals, at least at the data level, in addition to the basic accounting background which is traditional in nature. It is now moving towards: one, what is your knowledge level on AI? Two, what is your appetite for AI adoption? Three, how much are you actually hands-on in terms of applications of AI techniques? Over the last year and a half, the knowledge and working capabilities of a finance professional at any level to be able to understand, adapt and quickly replicate the AI technology is a part of it. Just knowing your basic degree-language of finance and accounting is not enough. New skills have to be taken up fast and integrated with finance studies. That is the kind of demand which is coming.

From a client point of view, what kind of concerns are arising?

The concerns right now are about getting the right set of people. There is a high demand for AI-driven finance professionals. But even if there are finance professionals available, there are not enough who are trained in AI along with finance. That is where the gap is currently getting wider in terms of growing demand and lesser supply.

Can downsizing be expected from accounting firms going forward?

There are definitely segments of the work which will be taken away because those are repetitive, rudimentary level jobs that will be immediately replaced - that has already started getting replaced. Any sort of data, basic level data things, spreadsheets, the kind of work which needs a lot of manual intervention, are increasingly getting replaced by AI. But when it comes to skills like analysis, prediction, and decision making, those are human-driven and will definitely not be replaced by AI. Organisations will actually need to move that bit of frontline finance force into the second level so that they can take up the tactical roles, while the frontline jobs get replaced by AI. But people are not going to lose jobs because of that.

So far, are all companies transitioning to AI for different facets of managerial accounting, or is it limited to only big companies as of now?

It has been a mix of both. Definitely, the bigger organisations, the big fours of the world have started off integrating AI in a big way on day-to-day life, about a year and a half back. Now, we see a lot of middle-sized companies and even newer ones aligning themselves. In the near future, maybe within a span of 2-5 years, AI is going to be predominant within all finance companies.

Given that there have been many instances of questionable auditing, what role do you see for AI?

AI will also mature over time but it is not the answer to everything. There would be some critical work which will still be human driven in terms of auditing. With AI, we are talking about replacing the repetitive, mundane day-to-day work to save time - not the auditing part of it. That still has to be driven by human efforts.

Privacy and security risks have been flagged due to the use of AI with sensitive information in the sector. What is your take? How can this risk be mitigated?

Reasonable care is being taken by all organisations because of the data privacy threat. Governments across the world are also sensitive to data threats. We presume that the more we grow in the path of AI journey, the more complex it will become. There is definitely a threat, including and beyond the finance domain. But if we are informed in using the technology, that minimises the risk. It is all about risk mitigation at the end of the day. To mitigate the risk, at a structural level, it has to be the government policies that play a major role. Organisations that play in a single geography or multi-geography will have to align as per the definition that is given by the government of the land. There would also be certain limitations at a policy level, so organisations are also building on their security systems.

Do you expect any challenges going forward amidst these shifts?

About 90% of this is pretty much sorted. The finance industry in India is definitely in a position for good growth. The only thing is that we, as certification bodies of finance, have a larger goal and responsibility as a whole community. We all need to talk about how we can predict the next 5-7 years hence the kind of changes in terms of integrating finance and technology, because previously, we used to talk about these two as two separate islands. How we plan those years is going to be very critical to keep this momentum going.