At this point, it may be unsurprising to learn that finance professionals see AI and generative AI as the force that will exert the greatest impact on their work over the next five years.
Perhaps more eye-opening is the predicted size of the gulf between AI and the next big, change-making forces, judging by research from Thomson Reuters. The legal services and content conglomerate, which incorporates AI in many of its products, polled 2,275 global professionals across the risk, compliance, tax, accounting, audit, global trade and legal functions.
Among those surveyed, 44% said the rise of AI and generative AI will have a “transformational” impact on their profession over five years, and an additional 36% said the impact will be “high.”
By comparison, just 22% of respondents forecasted that the velocity of change in the regulatory environment will have a transformational outcome, and 20% said so about the explosion in data volumes. The impact is expected to be “high” for 37% and 41% of those respondents, respectively.
Survey respondents also projected that professionals using AI will save five hours weekly within the next year, up from four hours as predicted in a similar Thomson Reuters survey a year ago. The five saved hours per week will unlock an average of $19,000 in annual value per person, according to the study results.
More meaningfully for the broad financial impact of AI and generative AI, 81% of organizations that have a specific, tailored plan for AI implementation are already experiencing ROI from AI, according to the research. That’s about 3.5 times more than the 23% of organizations with no significant plans for AI adoption, where AI usage is having such an impact.
Despite the benefits, however, as of this spring, only 22% of surveyed organizations overall had such a specific, tailored AI strategy, and about four in 10 were adopting AI without an overall strategy.
“Professional work is now being shaped by AI, and those who fail to adapt risk being left behind,” said Thomson Reuters CEO Steve Hasker in a news release. “By developing a strategy to drive both AI adoption and redeploy the productivity gains … organizations will achieve sustained innovation, greater operational excellence, and revenue growth.”
It should be noted that while 80% of the survey respondents expect AI and generative AI to have a transformational or high impact on their work over the next five years, most don’t foresee huge immediate movement toward adoption.
Only 38% of the professionals said they expect to see transformational or high levels of change this year. About three in 10 said their organizations were moving too slowly on AI adoption
