Artificial intelligence for professionals and SMEs: a meeting that will have a positive balance. We explain why (in the middle there is a vocation for consultancy)
Artificial intelligence does many things: it attracts, conquers, exalts, deceives, bewilders, frightens and, above all, transforms.
In fact, it will be the K factor, the decisive one, which will definitively transform professionals, such as accountants, into real business consultants.
It will do so both because the professionals themselves will be convinced and want to do so, and because their customers, the SMEs, will request their transformation.
And because on this journey the final destination will be a return to the origins of the professional: to become a company consultant for SMEs, a bearer of value and no longer a simple executor of obligations.
The use of artificial intelligence began decades ago, but now something unpredictable, until a few months ago, has happened: a sudden acceleration, which has imparted an extraordinary speed to the change which is perhaps the thing that scares the most, to everyone: companies, citizens, even the State, called to regulate, monitor against abuses, avoid drifts.
This acceleration has a name: it’s called generative artificial intelligence and is emblematically represented by ChatGPT, the product that has forever changed our perception of artificial intelligence.
He made us experience it, touch it, forcing us to come to terms with the dreaded algorithms by posing the question: let us dominate by them, as it would seem inevitable at first glance, or dominate them , control them and use them for our benefit?
Artificial intelligence: why you shouldn’t be afraid of it
In a recent interview, the CEO of OpenAI, Sam Altman, the very one who symbolically (but not too much) started the world revolution of generative artificial intelligence with ChatGPT, said how he could redefine society, not keeping silent potential risks and inviting everyone to develop it in a safe and responsible way.
For Altman, artificial intelligence is radically changing the way in which we work, automating some tasks and creating new career opportunities.
Altman recognizes that artificial intelligence could create unemployment, economic disparities, privacy issues, but precisely because the problems are already visible we can address them, with everyone’s collaboration, to ensure that artificial intelligence is regulated , safe, sustainable.
Therefore training and reskilling will be essential to help people stay in an ever-changing job market.
And precisely this training, this learning to do new things or to make existing things better, can only concern the professionals and the SMEs, their clients, to whom they provide services.
The advantages of artificial intelligence for professionals
By now it is clear that artificial intelligence is a mandatory destination for all production sectors and therefore the management of accounting and business consultancy are no exception.
In fact, even professionals such as accountants, business consultants and auditors will be able to benefit from the use of artificial intelligence to automate repetitive and boring tasks, improve the accuracy and speed of analysis and optimize work processes.
The introduction of artificial intelligence in the practice of professionals will certainly require an analysis of the existing skills and the training necessary to use it both effectively and in a way that is suited to the issues of security of data and the privacy.
But there is no doubt that automating repetitive and boring tasks will allow you to save time and resources.
For example, artificial intelligence can be used for the processing and analysis of accounting data, such as balance sheets, tax returns and accounting records.
It will also be able to support the preparation of report and the assessment of financial risks.
Not only that: it can assist in fraud detection and accounting irregularities and be used to create forecasts and future scenarios based on historical data.
Professionals need artificial intelligence with quality data
It is now clear that artificial intelligence is able to process large amounts of data, faster and more efficiently than humans, improving the accuracy and speed of analysis, providing more information accurate and useful.
But if on the one hand it offers efficiency, also reducing the risk of errors, on the other hand, in order to be able to give correct results, it needs correct data to be provided.
In fact, artificial intelligence is not synonymous with truth: if anything, it is with efficiency. But be careful: you can be extraordinarily efficient also in producing errors.
This is why the role played by management software and the one played by professionals in business consultancy are important: the former have the task of providing artificial intelligence with quality data, so that it can work at your best; it is up to the latter to understand whether the result obtained with artificial intelligence complies with the objectives.
A scenario is therefore configured, in which the meeting between the world of professionals and that of artificial intelligence technology can produce a synthesis with positive balance rather than negative, as some might be led to fear.
Artificial intelligence used with software for professionals
A testimony to understand the current potential of artificial intelligence is that of Francesco Schettino, head of Customer Service in Wolters Kluwer Tax & Accounting Italia.
His is the experience of using artificial intelligence in his service to the users, professionals and SMEs, of management software, including those of the Genya ecosystem, which have in their DNA the ability to provide to AI that quality data that is indispensable to it.
“We have developed our customer service in parallel with the digital transformation of our solutions - said Schettino - and we can say that today customer service can count on artificial intelligence. We have tools like intelligent chatbots equipped with deep learning tools, that is, they learn directly from the activities. Professionals and companies like to use them, because they solve low-complexity problems immediately and autonomously. This has a double effect: it brings them closer to digital technology and frees up resources for solving more complex problems".
But it’s not just about having simple answers. Wolters Kluwer Italia already offers in-depth analysis tools based on artificial intelligence to professionals and companies.
“We can say that today we have native customer service solutions. From our software you access an environment where there are video tutorials and chatbots developed on the basis of continuous insertions fed by self-learning algorithms and neural networks”.
Because artificial intelligence makes you better consultants
For example, the chatbot can respond to a question asked by an accountant by also offering legislative or regulatory articles. "In this environment - says Schettino - there are all our assistance tools, which ensure, for example, that while the user is writing a question, the system offers simultaneously suggestions relating to the question itself".
This is the artificial intelligence that already exists and that the professional uses profitably: a real assisted request in real time.
But, Francesco Schettino is convinced of this, does not replace human intelligence. He completes it. And it makes better consultants.
“Our operators are the first to know and to develop this concept, deepening their knowledge more and more in order to be real specialized consultants for customers. This platform will evolve over time, offering new support solutions, the result of listening to and analyzing customer needs".
This is why artificial intelligence can give companies, even those most reluctant to change, that push that is needed to make the real, decisive digital transformation.
Original article published on Money.it Italy 2023-04-04 08:00:00. Original title: Intelligenza artificiale, perché i professionisti non devono averne paura
