Artificial Intelligence and White-Collar Work: Evidence from the Accounting Profession

Abstract

We examine how accounting-related investments in artificial intelligence (AI) relate to firm-level demand for accounting labor and accounting work outcomes. We identify accounting-related AI investments using public firms’ job market postings. We first document that accounting-related AI investments increased markedly in recent years. These investments span all accounting subfields (audit, financial, managerial, and tax) and concentrate in larger, growing, and more intangible intensive firms. Firms investing in accounting-related AI demand significantly fewer accounting skills in the labor market and hire marginally fewer accountants. Despite accounting-related AI investments negatively relating to accounting hiring, they positively relate to improvements in some accounting-role-specific outcomes, such as 10-K filing speeds, 10-K readability, audit fees, and tax forecast accuracy. However, accounting-related AI investments do not relate to more extreme and high-impact outcomes, such as restatements, effective tax rates, and return on assets. We conclude that accounting-related AI investment reduces demand for traditional accountants and accounting skills but does not lead to worse accounting work outcomes. Our study provides preliminary evidence of how AI relates to labor demand for white-collar workers, and their work product. 

Keywords: Artificial intelligence, accounting skills, accounting labor, labor, machine learning JEL classification: J20