Gen AI – Complementing Skillsets of Finance Professionals

It gives me great pleasure to connect with you all on the occasion of completion of 75 years of ICAI. Congratulations to ICAI on the exemplary work being done to keep the professional bar high for CAs.

In this article, I would like to introduce the larger fraternity to the world of Gen-AI and typical use cases from the financial sphere. While any automation comes with a lot of buzz around loss of jobs, the advent of Gen AI has provided an opportunity to upskill ourselves in an area where need for financial professionals with strong domain expertise and agility in riding the technology wave and deliver significant value to all stakeholders will increase exponentially. We need to understand how to ensure Gen AI complements our skills, helps in bridging the demand gap and how to retain an edge to deliver enhanced value to our customers.

Generative AI in the technology maturity cycle

Generative AI is the buzzword of the season. Let us understand the evolution and differentiated capabilities of various technologies to better appreciate the potential uses.

• Digitization: Converting analog data into digital data and stored in digital libraries such as ERPs to facilitate easy access, retrieval, reporting and analysis. Example: recording of transactions based on accounting principles.
• Automation: Carrying out a task or series of tasks by using computers to achieve a desired output with minimum or no human intervention. Example: consolidating financial transactions to produce a P&L statement.
• Digitalization: Using digital technologies like internet, social media, smart phones etc. to enhance or transform business processes. Example: enabling online payments.
• Transformation: Completely reimaging a set of processes or building new processes for dramatically different outcomes using a combination of digitization, automation and digitalization.
• Artificial intelligence, Machine Learning: The next milestones of technology utilized to further transform and automate processes. Example: using these for fraud analytics or prediction of financial performance.
• Generative AI: Its main strength is in generating content to mimic humans. The models are built on humongous learning and come with great capabilities for data crunching, analytics and conversational skills. There are already multiple use cases deployed and under development in the finance industry.

Supply Vs Demand Gap for Finance Skills

Indian economy has been on a growth path. FICCI predicts that domestic financial services industry alone will generate 50 lakh jobs in the next decade. The President of ICAI expects there will be a requirement for 30 lakh CAs in India by 2047. B. Com and M. Com graduates, CAs and MBA Finance graduates form the supply. The number of people passing out of these streams is not close to the demand and is further dented by the employability factor (ranging from 50 to 75%). Other factors denting the availability pool are those leaving for finance roles outside India and those moving into other jobs. It is very clear that from a macro perspective there will be a huge gap between supply and demand for finance professionals in India. What needs our collective introspection and action is on the skill sets gap between academic learning and professional reality of a career.

Generative AI - Use cases for finance professionals

While Generative AI is a huge stride in terms of the technological advancements, the best use-cases for the technology come from the end-users. The adaptation cycle for Gen AI has probably been the shortest with numerous applications being developed and launched every day. Gen AI can be used effectively in every level of finance professional hierarchy.

• Entry level: People working on accounting or basic analysis can leverage the tool to look for patterns, carry out analysis and derive insights. Tools like Co-Pilot can help bridge soft skill gaps in communication.
• Mid-level: Professionals can utilize AI tools to customize pricing or first level review of contracts. Banking and Insurance industries are piloting use of Gen-AI platforms like Vertex AI.
• Senior professionals: Can utilize the tool to model complex scenarios or plan for desired financial outcomes. Gen-AI can bring in the next level of forensic integration for fraud analytics.
• Expert or Management level: Can leverage these tools for driving complete transformation of processes, like the creation of BloombergGPT™.

Human Skills to complement Generative AI

The popular models are trained on tons of data and patterns from across the globe, akin to "Nature". The real value comes from utilizing the tool for your specific context and intent, like "Nurture". Finance professionals need to hone the following aspects:

• Discerning use of finance domain Knowledge: Effectively understand and guide how accounting or financial principles should be applied. Continuously review processes keeping a holistic view of the business environment. Be the trusted professional partner for business.
• People Skills: Working as a team, communicating effectively and having robust conflict management skills will always be critical.
• Management Skills: Be capable of complex decision making and develop strategic thinking skills.
• Technology Skills: Develop a keen understanding of statistics and data science. Embrace adoption of technology while checking for RoI. Learn the art of "Prompt Engineering". Understand the basics of security frameworks.

I hope this article resonates with you all. Wishing you all the very best for your future endeavors. Congratulations to ICAI for the completion of 75th year anniversary.