Is AI really any riskier than the platforms (and people) we work with today?

Risk is subjective. In business, some people are comfortable with a measured degree of risk (think entrepreneurs and innovators). Others are more risk-averse, preferring certainty, predictability, and limited speculation. Accountants typically fall in the second camp, and that might be why many struggle with the concept of using AI for more than zero-shot prompting.

Because AI does carry some risk. From the ethical dilemma of sharing client data with AI vendors to the potential for error when using autonomous workflows, risk was a hot topic for debate at our first AI Exchange event in early November.

As a group, we agreed that risk shouldn’t be a deterrent for using AI. After all, firms are already assessing and managing risk day-to-day. AI doesn’t require anything more than the (hopefully robust) quality controls already in place. 

In fact, there’s an opportunity to make risk more visible, and therefore more controlled, when applying AI.