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Artificial intelligence tools are ready to exceed human capabilities in five key financial disciplines, according to research commissioned by SAP Insights.

The research examined the typical business processes employed by the finance function, and identified the areas where AI is reshaping work to the greatest degree: accounting, data management, planning and strategy, controlling, and analysis.

AI tools achieve these gains largely by automating processes and increasing efficiency. For example, AI tools can rapidly analyze large volumes of data, and they can detect discrepancies in that data more quickly than humans can. They can identify trends and make forecasts, and they can automate budgeting processes with predictive analytics.

For now, other areas are less affected, such as critical thinking and ethics, effective communication, problem-solving, and building domain knowledge/learning. AI tools lack ethical reasoning (for now), along with intuition and creative skills. This limits their ability to solve complex problems, but they can still offer improved support for decisions.

The research reveals where human skills are still needed. It also shows areas in which AI tools will eventually take over tasks that people currently perform, such as improving investment management and asset valuation when managing capital. AI will create new requirements or tasks, as well as shift the focus of financial work.

A closer look at each of the five disciplines facing the biggest changes shows some common strengths and weaknesses of AI, but it also shows some unique traits.

1: Accounting: Automating transactions, improving cash flow

AI tools outperform humans in accounting by automating transactional processes, thereby increasing efficiency, reducing errors, and processing transactions more quickly. They can perform continuous transaction monitoring, ensuring accurate cash flow management, and they can perform tax accounting with minimal human intervention, enabling real-time tax compliance and reporting.

AI systems create new requirements for implementing, maintaining, and controlling them, but the focus of human work is shifting toward strategy and compliance rather than transactional recordkeeping. Data entry is becoming less necessary. Human skills are needed to oversee compliance, to make ethical decisions, and for strategic financial management.

2: Data management skills: Speed and accuracy

Similarly, superior processing speed and accuracy mean AI tools are revolutionizing data management. These tools allow real-time data retrieval and processing, and as with accounting, they greatly reduce the need for manual data entry.

However, interpreting data, especially to inform business strategy, is still best handled by people. AI capabilities will prompt new requirements for developing and managing AI data management systems. Meanwhile, people will need to apply more data supervision, analysis, and decision-making skills in their roles.

3: Planning and strategy: Better forecasting

AI tools’ superior data processing capabilities mean they can identify trends and make better forecasts, predicting future events more accurately—though only in relation to quantitative data. They can integrate various data sources for more comprehensive risk management, and they can automate budgeting processes using predictive analytics.

However, people are still better at strategic thinking, and intuition and experience still matter. Furthermore, humans must create the inputs and define the parameters for scenario modeling and strategy formulation. So, humans’ responsibilities will become more about interpreting AI-generated forecasts and will move toward formulating strategic responses.

4: Controlling: Finding the discrepancies

Which of these things does not match the others? AI tools can detect discrepancies in data much more quickly than humans can, and then they can suggest fixes. They can create accurate, realistic budgets. And they can perform real-time monitoring, controlling parameters and identifying plan deviations.

Humans will still need to perform more advanced analyses to interpret AI-generated findings, and then take corrective actions based on those findings. They won’t have to monitor account balances and the company books, but they will need to monitor the AI systems. In other words, human oversight will still be crucial.

5: Analysis: Insights and modeling

AI tools shine at rapidly synthesizing and analyzing large volumes of data. They can offer insights through advanced data modeling techniques, and they can support decision-making with data-informed recommendations.

Human work is moving toward critical assessment of AI-produced recommendations, such as fact-checking. And people, not AI tools, will have to develop insight and implement those recommendations. As the technology becomes more powerful, the training and development of AI models will come into greater focus for humans, too.

AI will touch every finance discipline

Artificial intelligence tools are making inroads in every area of finance, but they are shifting humans’ roles and responsibilities, not replacing them. These tools’ automation capabilities reduce the need for tasks like data entry and report generation, but using AI also creates new tasks, such as oversight and analysis of all that AI data, for which humans need to apply our superior critical and strategic thinking skills.

For now, AI tools fall far short of humans’ capabilities in a few areas. They can’t engage in ethical reasoning. They can perform factual analysis, but they can’t decide right from wrong. They can handle routine communications, but not complex or strategic ones. They lack empathy and intuition, which limits their ability to interact with people (like customers).

Artificial intelligence is reshaping finance. But it is changing human work in each area to a different extent.

That doesn’t mean AI has no role in disciplines that require human judgment, although for the foreseeable future, jobs in these areas will continue to look similar to those today. AI can automate routine tasks, improve speed and accuracy, and provide analytical support for effective problem-solving.

Ultimately, the combination of AI and evolved human skills can help the businesses that adopt them to make quicker, better-informed business decisions in every area of finance.

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