116 The Impact of AI On Offshore & Entry Level Accountants
Summary
TLDRThis video delves into groundbreaking studies comparing the productivity of knowledge workers using AI versus traditional methods across various tasks and technical skill levels. Surprisingly, the findings challenge preconceived notions about AI's impact on the workforce, particularly offshore workers and new graduates. Contrary to the belief that AI primarily automates menial tasks, the evidence suggests it enhances performance across the entire skill spectrum, including complex white-collar tasks. This shift could herald a new era where entry-level workers, empowered by AI, can quickly reach parity with their more experienced counterparts, reshaping the landscape for offshore staff and fresh graduates alike.
Takeaways
- 💭 Recent studies show that AI enhances productivity and quality of work for knowledge workers, challenging assumptions about future work dynamics.
- 🔥 AI impacts tasks across the entire skill spectrum, not just menial tasks, affecting both low and high-skilled workers.
- 🚀 Offshore workers and new graduates could benefit greatly from AI, potentially entering a golden age of accelerated skill development and contribution.
- 📲 Studies have found that AI can help complete tasks more quickly and with higher quality, with one study noting a 12.2% increase in task completion and a 25% speed increase.
- 🔧 However, AI's effectiveness varies by task type, with financial analysis tasks seeing a performance dip when AI is used.
- 🤩 Lower-skilled workers see a more significant performance boost from AI than higher-skilled workers, suggesting AI could democratize skill levels.
- 💻 The use of AI for upskilling and enhancing productivity is not just limited to entry-level tasks but extends to complex, strategic roles across industries.
- 👨💻 Offshore staffing is not just about low-level tasks; offshore workers are capable of performing high-level technical roles, and AI can enhance this capability.
- 📌 The narrative around automation needs to shift from fear of job loss to focusing on AI as a tool for enhancing work quality and efficiency across all levels.
- 🙋♂️ Emotional intelligence and human interaction skills remain irreplaceable, with AI automation likely increasing the importance of these skills in the workplace.
Q & A
What was the main finding from the Harvard study on AI's impact on knowledge workers?
-The main finding was that participants with access to the AI model gp4 completed 12.2% more tasks on average, completed tasks 25% faster, and produced 40% higher quality output compared to the control group without AI access.
Why does the speaker believe the idea that AI will replace offshore workers is misguided?
-The speaker believes offshore workers are just as capable of high-level technical work as onshore workers. The misconception comes from offshore workers historically doing more entry-level work, but with investment they can develop high levels of expertise like anyone else.
How did AI disproportionately help the bottom 50% of performers in the study?
-The bottom 50% of performers saw a 43% boost in productivity with AI access, while the top 50% of performers only saw a 17% boost. This suggests AI can help lower performers reach parity with higher performers more easily.
What is the speaker's main argument around new grads and AI?
-The speaker argues that pairing new grads with AI will help them be vastly more productive and capable than previously possible at the start of their careers. AI can help compensate for lack of experience.
What was novel about the meta GPT system?
-Meta GPT simulated different expert agent roles working together on a software project, like a project manager, coder, tester etc. The interaction of these different skill sets produced higher quality output than a single AI agent.
How might an AI system that prepares tax returns be structured internally?
-It would likely have different internal agents with perspectives like an administrator, detail reviewer, technical reviewer, and client representative that analyze the problem from different angles before producing the final output.
Why does the speaker say AI automation impacts all roles rather than just entry-level roles?
-AI can help improve efficiency and quality at every level from administrative tasks to highly technical analysis. The output is only as capable as the knowledge provided, not inherently biased towards low or high level work.
What interpersonal skill does the speaker say is becoming more important with AI automation?
-As AI takes on more technical work, skills like emotional intelligence, relationship building, empathy and compassion are becoming more premium for humans to complement the technology.
What evidence counters fears that AI will reduce jobs for offshore and new workers?
-Studies show AI disproportionately helps lower performers, closing gaps rather than removing jobs. Given accounting's labor shortage and growing workload, AI should create more capacity, not redundancy.
Why can't accounting firms simply fire workers if jobs are automated by AI?
-Firms are constantly lacking enough staff. Any automation will be used to give existing employees capacity for higher value work, not to reduce headcount.
Outlines
🔍 AI's Impact on Knowledge Work and Skill Spectrum
This segment introduces the evolving landscape of AI in the workplace, particularly focusing on its effects on knowledge workers across various tasks and skill levels. Highlighting recent studies, the speaker challenges common assumptions about AI, emphasizing its potential to automate tasks beyond menial ones, affecting all levels of work. The narrative shifts towards the specific impacts on offshore workers and new graduates, suggesting a paradigm shift in how work might be distributed and valued. The notion that AI could democratize skill levels and enhance productivity across the board is floated, alongside a jest about new graduates buying out firms.
📊 Study Insights: AI's Varied Effects on Task Performance
Delving into specifics, this part outlines findings from studies involving consultants and AI, revealing that AI assistance leads to significant improvements in task completion and quality, especially in narrative-driven consulting tasks. However, a nuanced picture emerges with a study showing AI's limitations in financial analysis tasks, where AI-assisted participants performed worse. These mixed results illustrate the 'jagged edge' of AI's capabilities, suggesting both the potential and the challenges in integrating AI effectively across different work domains.
🚀 AI and the Golden Age for Entry-Level Workers
Focusing on the differential impact of AI on workers based on their skill levels, this segment highlights that lower-skilled workers see greater performance boosts from AI assistance compared to their higher-skilled counterparts. This suggests a 'Golden Age' for newcomers and entry-level workers, potentially leveling the playing field between novices and veterans. The discussion extends to the implications for offshore workers and new graduates, positing that AI could be a powerful tool for upskilling and democratizing access to high-level productivity.
🤖 Rethinking Offshore Work and Automation Assumptions
This section critiques prevailing assumptions about the role of offshore teams and automation's impact. It argues against the notion that AI will primarily displace entry-level or offshore tasks, suggesting instead that AI's reach across the skill spectrum could enhance the value of offshore teams. The speaker challenges stereotypes about offshore workers' capabilities and discusses the potential for AI to elevate their roles within firms, moving beyond the limited view of offshore work as inherently low-level or menial.
🧠 AI's Broad Impact and the Future of Work
Exploring AI's comprehensive impact, this segment discusses how AI could transform work across all levels, including complex and creative tasks. It introduces concepts like Meta GPT and autogen frameworks that allow for a multifaceted approach to problem-solving, potentially revolutionizing how tasks are approached and completed. The speaker envisions a future where AI-assisted roles span from administrative tasks to strategic decision-making, challenging traditional notions of work distribution and expertise.
✨ Optimism for Newcomers and the Human Element in AI
Concluding the narrative, this part reflects on the broader implications of AI for newcomers to the profession and the enduring importance of human skills. It suggests that AI's integration into work processes offers unprecedented opportunities for new entrants to make meaningful contributions early in their careers. However, it also underscores the growing importance of human-centric skills like relationship management and emotional intelligence, which remain irreplaceable by AI. The speaker closes with a positive outlook on AI's role in augmenting human work and fostering inclusivity in professional growth.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡AI Impact
💡Knowledge Workers
💡Technical Skill Spectrum
💡Offshore Workers
💡New Grads
💡Generative AI
💡Task Automation
💡Performance Boost
💡Fixed Amount of Work
💡Upskilling
Highlights
Studies show high-quality benchmarks for knowledge workers using AI versus not, across various tasks and skill levels, challenging assumptions about work's future.
AI's impact goes beyond automating menial tasks, affecting jobs across the entire skill spectrum, including decision-makers and high-level positions.
Misconceptions debunked: AI affects more than just menial work, and the amount of work available is not fixed but can expand with technology and legislative changes.
Harvard Business School study found that participants using GPT-4 completed tasks 12.2% more and 25% faster, with a 40% higher quality in responses.
AI showed a decrease in performance for financial analysis tasks, highlighting the 'jagged edge' of innovation where AI excels in some areas but not others.
Lower-skilled workers see a significant performance boost from AI, narrowing the gap with higher-skilled workers and potentially leveling the playing field.
The 'Golden Age of Noobs': AI could enable rapid upskilling of entry-level and offshore workers, making them more competitive and valuable.
AI may disadvantage high performers by making it easier for lower-skilled workers to catch up, challenging traditional skill hierarchies.
Offshore workers are not limited to menial tasks; with AI, they can perform complex, high-level tasks, debunking stereotypes and opening new opportunities.
The advent of AI and new technologies like meta GPT and Microsoft's autogen framework indicate that AI can enhance work across all levels, not just entry-level tasks.
As AI automates more technical tasks, the value of human interaction, emotional intelligence, and relationship management increases in the workplace.
AI's role in automating tasks across the skill spectrum suggests that both offshore workers and new graduates have a bright future in industries adopting AI.
The narrative challenges the fear that AI will replace jobs, instead suggesting it will transform jobs and create opportunities for all skill levels.
AI's impact on financial analysis tasks underscores the importance of understanding its limitations and the need for human oversight in certain areas.
The potential for AI to standardize capabilities among workers of different skill levels could lead to a more equitable and efficient workforce.
Transcripts
we're getting some really high quality
studies for the first time benchmarking
knowledge workers outputs when using AI
versus not using AI just in general on
different types of tasks but also on the
technical skill spectrum and I think the
results are surprising and May challenge
some of the assumptions we have about
how work is going to change in the near
future so come on in let's talk about it
specifically how does this stuff impact
offshore workers and how does this
impact new grads those fresh baby cheek
new grads that we need to come in and
help us out and ultimately buy us out of
our firms right that's really what we're
concerned about here so come on in let's
talk about
[Music]
it I'm just kidding I'm I was kidding
about about new grats just buying us out
that's not why we want you here we want
you here because this is such a
a fun and challenging profession that's
why we want you here okay I think the
general I I see people saying oftentimes
around AI the same standard Trope that
we saw we've always seen with automation
that oh AI is going to be great to aate
automate the menial tasks and get us get
us on to performing higher value work
and I don't think that's necessarily
true it will automate menial tasks but
it's going to automate tasks on the
entire skill Spectrum this is really for
the first time it's interesting it's for
the first time that like white collar
stuff is getting automated and the
decision makers the important people
their jobs are actually at risk too it's
not something that is being put upon
like the lower skilled workers it's
impacting everybody and I still don't
know that people have their heads around
this because I keep hearing things like
well there goes offshore and what are
all the interns going to do and there's
kind of two like inherent fallacies in
that one is that AI only impacts menial
work which is absolutely absolutely
incorrect if anything it's more
disruptive to like mid mid uper level
folks for reasons that we're going to
get into but the second misconception
here is just that there's a fixed amount
of work to be done and that this is like
the biggest fcy in all the AI ending
anyone's jobs discussion is the idea
that there's this fixed volume of work
to be done and in public accounting that
could not be further from the truth
riddle me this if you run a firm and you
have a team and you found a way to
automate one of your team members jobs
or half of their jobs would you go out
and fire that person tomorrow no you
absolutely wouldn't like I like that was
would have never been in been the case
in all of my firm running years we were
so hungry for more good people and
constantly trying to upskill people and
do everything we can to automate for
them so that they they can keep doing
higher value stuff and I don't know what
better example we need than Co to show
us that there's not just a fixed amount
of work in this profession you get
legislative changes you get I there's a
hundred different examples of when the
workload increases and contracts and for
whatever reason we still go into work we
still work all day and then we come home
and that's probably going to happen
until the end of time until you like
give yourself permission to work less
but that's another podcast episode so
the there's this notion that there's a
fixed amount of work to be done in that
that totally isn't the case and so in
the last couple months we've actually
got some interesting studies around that
like try to as best as they can fairly
Benchmark giving a set of workers AI to
work with and having a set of workers
complete the same tasks without Ai and
they've gone a long ways to try to like
randomize this and ensure that it's not
going to be biased towards people that
maybe already had like experience using
you know a chat GPT or something like
that because there's definitely an
element of learning the tool in fact one
of these studies one of the things they
benchmarked was even like giving them a
primer on this tool and so they pulled
in folks that had never used it before
and it was just an AI chatbot and the
folks who they gave like a really highle
primer vastly outperformed the folks who
used it who didn't have that primer a
great reminder of the value of just
knowing a little bit of prompt
engineering and that sort of thing AKA
send your team my chat GPT videos but
interestingly what at least the two main
studies that I saw both found I'll
reference this one from uh Harvard
Business School It's actually an
interesting read navigating the jagged
technological Frontier field
experimental evidence of the effects of
AI on knowledge worker productivity and
quality that is a mouthful I'll put a
link to this in the show notes if you're
interested in general participants with
access to the large language model gp4
completed 12.2% more tasks on average
and completed tasks 25% more quickly
than those without access to Ai and the
context here is it was a group of 385
participating Consultants were given a
set of 18 Consulting tasks and so this
what does this tell us this tells us uh
maybe how helpful it is on Consulting
tasks right which is not necessarily
always the stuff that we do I think a
lot of this is actually like narrative
type of thing which would completely
make sense that it would be super
helpful there it says the responses
produced by the Consultants with access
to generative AI were more than 40%
higher quality compared to a control
group I don't know how you measure that
but that's a big Delta another
interesting tidbit here they ran a
second experiment where they required
study participants to analyze a
company's brand performance using
insights and financial data the
responses were evaluated based on
correctness and there was a notable dip
in performance among those with access
to the AI compared to the control group
subjects in the control group were
correct about 85% of the time while
those in the two AI access categories
saw an average decrease of 19 percentage
points by comparison so the folks uh
that used AI for financial analysis
scored 20% worse and actually part of
the the idea of this study they call it
the what is it the jagged edge of
innovation the jaged tech techological
Frontier it's just like the difficulty
of knowing what it will do well and what
it won't do well and how to ultimately
trust it when you don't exactly know
what it's going to nail and what it's
not going to nail cuz when it's magic
it's amazing until it does something
really dumb and you don't always know
when that's going to come but the most
interesting thing in this that the last
two studies I've seen both said was that
those participants who were categorized
as bottom half skill performers saw a
large larger boost in performance from
having access to AI 43% when completing
experimental task compared to the bump
experienced by top half skill performers
just 177% so the folks in the lower 50s
percentile in terms of their performance
levels coming into the study increased
performance with AI by 43% folks who are
in the top half only increased by
17% and this makes sense in general if
you try to use this stuff for your area
domain expertise it's not always that
impressive right but if I use this for
something I don't know anything about
like cooking or coming up with a
cocktail recipe or applying a tourniquet
in battle like these aren't things that
I'm an expert in so it's going to be
really helpful there and I suppose by
extension then it makes sense that the
people who maybe within your field are
not as accomplished as you have more to
gain by using that AI than you do and so
to bring this back around to Gra Brads
and offshore staff what this tells me is
that this could be the Golden Age of
noobs the Golden Age of of entry-level
skill people of upskilling folks at a
level that like was never before
possible if we can get our
underperformers to improve to a level of
parity with the folks who were the over
performers it's like this now this
standardization of capability if
everybody has AI now there's a a much
smaller Delta between those new folks
and the folks who were high performers
previously and so to me if anyone is
disadvantaged by this it's the high
performers I think right because it's
easier than ever before for the
underperformers to reach parody with
them this episode is sponsored in part
by the fine folks at Cloud accountant
Staffing do you hire accountant Mountain
bless your little heart uh not the best
part of the job in my opinion not
something I ever enjoyed well listen you
can build your accounting dream team
dream team with talented offshore
accountants in the Philippines that work
100% full-time for your firm their
accountants aren't freelancing or
Contracting for multiple firms they're
all yours they work exclusively for you
and are incentivized to stay with you
and your team long term they're not
going to get swiped cloud account
Staffing is 100% dedicated to the
accounting industry and founded by a
former accounting firm owner that
understands your business knows your
paying points they had to hire some
accountants and they said you know what
we're going to build our own pipeline in
the
Philippines going to pull in some super
talented people and then open that up to
other firms basically that's the story
uh we been talking about a lot about
Staffing building more resilient
Staffing pipelines for your firms I I
had staff in the Philippines I like
totally redpilled me to like oh gez like
we need to globalize the way that we get
our work done uh check these folks out
Link in the show description Cloud
accountant staffing.com this episode oh
this episode is sponsored in part by
count tests you know what I don't enjoy
uh spinning the old wheel of does this
person I just hired know what the hey
they're doing uh because I can tell you
that more times the not the answer was
no because how in the world do you
actually figure out if this person can
be deductive based on I don't know a
resume based on the firmness of their
handshake you can't but count tests it's
going to give you a little more
information than you had otherwise so
count test is a super duper simple way
of doing skills testing for the people
that you're going to hire basically you
generate a link you can run them through
these skills tests it's nothing super
sweaty but you know what it is is
information information that you
wouldn't otherwise have unless you sent
them this little quiz they got tests for
accounting stuff for Gap stuff for t
stuff whatever you're hiring for they
probably got a test for you super cost
effective because let me tell you it is
a whole heck of a lot cheaper than
hiring the wrong person and then
training them for months and then
realizing I have made a huge mistake and
we just wasted months of our time with
the wrong person boy do I have a whole
closet full of those t-shirts so if
that's something keeps you up at night
check out account test we'll put a link
in the show notes now specifically
looking at the the offshore uh
discussion because I've seen a lot of
people talking about this that this
ultimately will will hurt offshore
workers the adoption of AI I I think
there's a number of things like loaded
into that line of reasoning the main one
being the super broken mental model that
says offshore workers are just going to
do low entry level menial work I'll let
you in on a secret offshore workers are
capable of absolutely everything from a
technical standpoint that on workers are
and it's like it sounds dumb to say
aloud but it's like these people are
humans like they can learn every bit as
as quickly as the people that we have
onshore the main thing that most
companies aren't going to do is they're
not going to put them in a client facing
capacity at least in Professional
Services you won't do that but because
the first work that went offshore
culturally was like low-level entrylevel
menial stuff that nobody else wanted to
do is this really unfortunate projection
onto offshore workers that that's all
they're capable of when I know firms
who's most senior technical people most
senior ta tax technical people are
offshore often times it means building
that investment yourself like investing
in people over decades and getting them
to where you want them to go there are
talented people I mean all all the big
firms are offshore so those people like
you could hire a big four person in the
US that's super talented you can do the
same offshore but they're going to be
really hard to get just like they are
here in the US but if you believe that
you can develop somebody onshore to a
level of expertise promise you you can
develop an offshore person to that same
level of expertise so what I get really
excited about when I read this is the
notion that I could pull in offshore
folks who are not like the mega
highlevel technical big four types but I
can pull people in and actually upskill
them faster than ever ever before by
pairing them with AI which for me makes
them more value Val than ever to bring
this back to college grads same thing
like that makes those people more
valuable to me than ever the notion that
I could pair a college grad with an AI
and they're capable of more productive
output than they could be otherwise I
mean we all know when we were Juniors
just the astronomical time you spent uh
floundering and trying to figure
something out because you were afraid to
ask another question and you just burned
like entire afternoons in the sunmer
summer trying to figure out something
really dumb because you just don't want
to be the numpty that has to ask imagine
having a little friend you could ask who
wouldn't judge you who like there was no
fear of asking stupid questions my gosh
like chat assistants are going to be so
so valuable for juniors so if we all of
a sudden have like Junior technical
people that are capable of way way more
I have a really hard time imagining
there's not going to be something for
these people to do right if anything if
an entry level person will get me 80% of
the capability of a person with a
decade's experience like I would think
that person how to be concerned now
ultimately in our space we are so so far
from anybody need needing to be
concerned because there are so many
things to do and so many more people
that we can help and more things that we
can do for all the people that we
already have that I mean I genuinely
believe nobody is in a position where
they're like oh we found a way to
automate what you do see you later it's
just not realistic I don't think and so
I heard this this came up last week at
an in an executive Round Table and there
was kind of just this implicit
assumption that it was almost kind of a
bygone conclusion that oh we won't we
won't really need our offshore teams
anymore and I just I think I think what
that's actually founded in is the past
realities around automation the stuff
that you would automate is like data
extraction data entry stuff like that
are we I think we have some assumptions
that maybe we're not aware of that are
founded in past types of Technology
where the stuff that was most ripe for
automation were the tasks that the entry
level people were doing but that's
absolutely not the case with AI
everything on the skill spectrum is
subject to like AI being able to help
you get that stuff done more efficiently
do it completely for you right now I
genuinely don't think it is concentrated
at one level of expertise Spectrum or
the other if you think about stuff like
the most technical research oh my gosh
the power of a I to go through mountains
of documentation super super nuanced
documentation and make connections
instantly in a way that would take you
so so so long to do doesn't mean it's a
a replacement for your verification and
for you going in and doing a lot of that
digging too but some of those hairiest
things that require the connection of a
bunch of stuff that a junior person may
not be aware of AI is going to be
tremendously helpful for that stuff so
another couple interesting technical
developments that I think lean into this
even further uh a little bit around kind
of the architecture of how AI is
continuing to get better and what the
solutions that ultimately like can
prepare tax return or or do these really
complex tasks will look like it was
maybe a month or two ago there was a
project put together that was really hot
for a while called meta GPT and what was
novel about meta GPT is meta GPT the
multi-agent framework work was it
basically created these avatars
simultaneously that would work with each
other and bounce things off of each
other to get to a higher quality final
product and this was specifically
created around the notion of software
development and so if you have a
software agency that's not like a single
person with all of the expertise doing
all of this stuff right you have
different roles within that agency
people with different types of expertise
that add their own make their own
contributions to a project and as a
result kind of the rubbing together of
those different skill sets creates a
higher quality output and that was kind
of the premise of metag GPT and so you
would task it with creating a an
application and within that you had a
bunch of different agents you had an
engineer agent and its jobs were to
write code review code debug code you
had a QA agent its job was to write
tests and run tests these these are like
tests for the system to see if it breaks
that sort of thing Quality Assurance
third you had a project manager it would
write tasks assign tasks to different
agents review I don't know what that is
review design and review code you have
an architect it would write the design
review the design and review the code
you had a product manager and then you
had a boss that was managing the overall
requirements of the project and all of
those different agents worked together
on that same task and they would
critique each other and iterate on
exactly what they were doing through all
of those different perspectives and this
was really novel and yielded a much much
higher higher quality output than if you
simply toal language model how to do a
thing and then asked it to do it it
turned out that all of those different
perspectives and how they interacted
with each other yielded a higher quality
[Music]
output this episode is sponsored part by
the fine folks at Tech Guru because you
got better stuff to do than worry about
your computer problems Tech Guru is an
IT firm that just works with accountants
accounting firms so they understand you
understand the annual cycle the
oftentimes awful software you're forced
to use not always and they do it via
their three s's approach that's right
there's three of them I'm now going to
give them to you one at a time one
strategy industry focused Tech strategic
sessions with accounting technology
experts like people that do this stuff
for a whole bunch of accounting firms
number two security ensure nobody's
going to steal your Lucky Charms my copy
not theirs and three support so that you
got somebody by your side when bleep
hits the proverbial fan am I right spend
less time stressing about computer stuff
more time uh stressing about client
stuff that's what you should be doing uh
learn more about tech Guru at the link
in the show notes this episode is
sponsored in part by cop pilot okay
everybody gather around take take one
another's hands now we can all agree the
way that we exchange information with
clients very important can be a massive
time waster if you don't nail it but I
get it the fear of training clients on a
portal system right what if you end up
not liking it what if you train a whole
pile of people on this giant system and
then you're like turns out this actually
isn't the one for me or this new super
cool AI rocket ship platform just took
off now I got to get all my clients to
move here's the thing that is the best
argument for why your client portal
experience ought to be separate from
your workflow management tool you
getting what I'm saying co-pilot man all
they want to touch is that client
experience just the portal giving you a
mega flexible platform for how you want
to work with your clients so that if the
workflow stuff changes if you want to
pull in a different tool for that you
can without changing the client
experience pretty smart especially in
these scary Changing Times of AI right
right actually got a uh a demo dat
coming up on the main YouTube channel
from co-pilot in the next week or two
where we actually get Hands-On with it
you can see even even more about it so
you're looking for a cool modern client
portal experience check out co-pilot
Link in the show notes and this is kind
of building on you know something we've
talked about in the past Chain of
Thought prompting where when you're if
you're talking to chat GPT and you want
it to solve a complex problem you'll get
a much higher quality output if you ask
it to solve it step by step because it
kind of as it outlines stuff step by
step it is changing the probabilities
related to like what is subsequently
generated and in that study where gp4
passed the CPA exam this step-by-step
approach actually increased it score by
20 points so it makes a big difference
in the quality the output metag GPT the
notion of having all these roles and
they interact with each other is kind of
a further development of that concept
and this got picked up again recently
because Microsoft just launched their
own version of this framework that's
it's a little more flexible it's not
specific to developing software it's
really interesting it's called autogen
I'll put links to all this stuff in the
show notes autogen enabling Next
Generation large language model
applications and it lets you in a more
modular way build basically what metag
GPT was explaining and you can even
design kind of different ways for those
agents to interact like you can have a
hierarchical version where you have kind
of a boss and everyone reports back up
to that boss you can have like a more
circular sort of thing and then what we
do what this ultimately looks like I was
talking with Ashley Francis about this
the other day when it comes to tax and
accounting you're probably going to have
these agent roles uh that really
represent like human roles on the entire
expertise Spectrum so take a tax return
for example like an AI that ultimately
will prepare tax turn behind the scenes
there's probably all of these different
agents attacking that problem from
different angles so you've probably got
something like an admin that is like
ensuring that the project is moving
through the steps and the documentation
is like in line with the company
standards stuff like that second you
probably have like a detail reviewer the
person that's making sure that you know
this number got keyed in correctly over
here just making sure there wasn't
transpositions that sort of thing third
you probably have a technical reviewer
the person who is reviewing the output
more through the lens of the technical
rules fourth you probably have the
client who is considering does this
outcome align with past Communications
I've had and the expectations we had for
this outcome you probably got this whole
cast of characters that is approaching
the problem like from their own
different perspective and you'll notice
it's not all entry-level stuff like the
the agents are speaking into this
project at every single level of
expertise they're whittling away at that
problem in the context of you know a
month end close and an accounting firm
it probably looks similar you've
probably got an administrative sort of
thing where it is managing the movement
of the entire project itself you may
have roles that look like a traditional
finance department so maybe you've got
like a bookkeeper an accountant a
controller a CFO maybe even a CEO that's
looking more at the kind of over-the-top
results but some of the bigger more
complex AI applications that will come
together to perform perform this really
complex novel task right now it looks
like the way that stuff's going to get
done is by collections of Agents acting
through the lenses of different roles
and the fact that this research has
floated up to the top and you have
people like Microsoft investing in these
Frameworks to help people develop things
this way to me this is really compelling
proof that what llms are ultimately
great at is not the menial entry level
work is all of the work is the entire
vertical it's simply a matter of the
knowledge that you put into that
language model that is what it's going
to do really well the perspective that
you give it the things that you want it
to prioritize ultimately that's what
it's going to do and that can be SE
Suite level stuff or it could be entry
level stuff and so as we were kind of
having these conversations last week I
kind of initially took it for granted
like yeah we're talking about automation
so it's going to be the entry-level
stuff and it's going to be you know the
entry-level people ultimately that are
at risk but maybe that's not a problem
because we can't find new people right
but the more I thought about it as I was
looking more into autogen recently and
thinking about metag GPT as I'm reading
some of these new studies that are
coming out all of these things are kind
of corroborating that notion that it's
not the entry level stuff that's at risk
everything is at risk really probably
and maybe at risk isn't the right way to
put it but everything can be improved we
can improve upon the way that we're
completing virtually all of these tasks
which is great news like CEO wants to
get home for dinner just as much as the
entry level dude right and so I like I
don't wait into the whole pipeline
discussion and CPA exam and all that
stuff but this is one area where uh like
I'm all of the evidence that we have
right now I think points to the fact
that that this is great news for people
coming into the profession it it's going
to be an accelerant for them to make
meaningful contributions you remember
what your first couple years in the
profession were out in a stinky
Warehouse somewhere counting potatoes
like man nobody's going to miss that
stuff so the notion that new people can
come in and be much more productive than
ever before that's great news that is a
big old win for all of us in my book and
I would also extend that as far as
offshore staffers Staffing offshore
workers where maybe that goes sideways
is in a situation where the firm just
doesn't have the right mindset and isn't
treating those people as like peer
members of the team but rather this like
lower level team that's only allowed to
do menial things I think that's a
massive waste I mean that's just like
like I guess I don't get why people I
guess see offshore teams through such a
different lens it'd be like going out
and hiring a bunch of people from a
different college and saying like oh
they're not capable of this other work
like they're capable of all of the same
things strategically when you plug these
people into your business like yes
you're probably not going to put
offshore team members and client facing
roles but we can't even manage to get
the work done like it is all hands on
deck in this profession right now could
you use more people to help you do all
the technical stuff absolutely now one
thing that is the same I think one thing
that does carry over from the old
automation tropes is just the continued
March towards there being a shrinking
amount of space for folks who can't be
human for people who can't build
relationships with other human beings uh
we've been saying that about automation
for for a long time there's less and
less room for that person who's going to
sit back in the corner and just crunch
numbers all day and not manage
relationships or manage people uh AI is
going to keep pushing Us in that
direction I think it sure seems that way
right now if you go out and you hire 10
entry level people and they're capable
of really high level powerful stuff
that's awesome but then what do their
jobs become it skews then more heavily
towards relationship management rather
than doing the work right now if your
job is 50/50 relationship management and
doing the work I see AI knocking off
more of the doing of the work tasks than
the relationship management tasks which
which just take time sure there's stuff
like writing emails and all that that it
can help with but ultimately AI
automating a bunch of work is probably
impacting the technical stuff more than
the human stuff
so I would say that remains unchanged
we're continuing to go down the path of
it being more important to be able to be
human to build relationships to be you
know have high emotional intelligence to
be able to make people feel like you
care about them to be able to like
listen and be compassionate and have
empathy and all that stuff that is
becoming more important by the day and I
think especially as we have more digital
experiences and more things get
productized and we talk to chat Bots
more instead of actual people we're
going to get more and more of a premium
on human and person experiences and
service that is human not a chap bot so
we still got to figure out how to be
human not just for work but because
that's also just a good thing to do you
know okay if you are offshore working
for like a US company if you are a new
grad if you're considering coming in
another profession in my mind this is
all good news if you have people who are
afraid of this or like fellow students
who have been spooked by this please
share this everything here seems to
point to AI actually being killer for
you and this is win for everybody like
the boss they want you to be as as
productive as possible too right so this
all seems like really good news to me uh
what do you think anything you've seen
that would would make you think the
opposite or any compelling evidence that
we've got to the counter to this would
love to hear it uh we're still kind of
figuring this stuff out day by day right
so thanks for coming and hanging today
and I'll see you in the next
one
he
تصفح المزيد من مقاطع الفيديو ذات الصلة
5.0 / 5 (0 votes)