Did you happen to see this WSJ article from the other day? In “In This Critical Part of Audits, the Accountant’s Role Is Shrinking Fast,” we’re given a look into KPMG’s AI plans. Not just a look but a specific timeline in audit that starts with AI agents being deployed this summer and, should that pilot go well, ends with agents performing all routine testing by 2029 or thereabouts:
Accounting firms are scaling back the role of human auditors in routine testing of things like payroll and revenue contracts, long a critical part of their work, amid a greater reliance on AI agents.
KPMG said it plans to remove humans from routine testing so they can focus on more complicated tasks, while “orchestration agents”—which autonomously manage several agents, potentially more than 20—handle testing duties. That switch will start with a pilot program this summer, with plans for full AI agent deployment on certain tests next year.
While human auditors won’t perform routine testing, they will still review it, work on data collection and do risk assessment. Of these four areas of the audit, only routine testing was listed as having no human audit team associated with it within two to three years, according to a presentation in a KPMG briefing.
What this confirms for us is something we’ve been saying for a while now: offshore staff are the ones most at risk from automation. They’re the ones doing this kind of work after all. So what happens after their tasks are pushed off on AI? Do firms keep them around and push higher level work on them until it’s just US-based partners in empty offices, a staff of AI-reviewers offshore, and an army of agents doing the grunt work in a server somewhere?
And the most important question of all: who is ultimately responsible when things go wrong as they surely will?
To revisit a quote from Firms Tell the PCAOB There’s an Offshoring Brain Drain (published December 12, 2024):
“Our staff now will never see cash testing, as it is done offshore. We are going to see the impact of that when they are managers.”
Here we haven’t even seen the full effect of mass offshoring and they’re already speedrunning AI.
Note to any clients reading this: be sure to ask for a discount.
