Alfred Ramosedi (FCMA) (CGMA) | President | Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA) | Co-Chair | Association of International Certified Professional Accountants (AICPA) | mail me |
As a society, we are rightly asking some important questions about the future of our world. Some of the most important questions relate to Artificial Intelligence (AI) and how it could impact our lives and livelihoods. They also concern whom and what we trust. Other important questions arise from the changing geopolitical order.
Significant social trends, including ageing populations and declining birth rates, also demand attention. There are also critical questions about whether we are making sufficient progress in the existential fights against climate change and biodiversity loss.
Since the future of accountancy and finance is inextricably linked to the future of the world, we should also ask some important questions about our profession. For that reason, AICPA and CIMA combined forces to launch Rise2040. This profession-wide initiative brings together 6,000 insights from across the globe. Collectively, these insights explore, challenge and shape what comes next for the finance and accounting profession.
Rise2040 is not meant to predict exactly what the future holds for business. Rather, it provides finance and accounting professionals with a framework to navigate uncertainty. It also helps them identify emerging opportunities and risks. In addition, it strengthens the capabilities needed to remain relevant and trusted in a rapidly changing environment. Ultimately, these priorities will help shape the future of accounting and the wider profession.
Vision for the future
The research clearly highlights the pivotal role our profession can play in defining our collective future. It particularly underlines the huge opportunity we have to help lead the shift to an AI-powered world. In this world, organisations will routinely deploy AI technologies to automate repetitive, difficult and even dangerous tasks. They will also use these technologies to create positive outcomes for individuals, organisations and communities.
In this world, humans will lead machines instead of vice versa. They will also remain constantly in the loop. They will monitor AI systems, intervene when appropriate, and interpret and challenge their output.
By 2030, 70% of finance functions will use AI for real-time decision-making, according to Gartner. The firm also predicts that agentic AI will make at least 15% of daily decisions autonomously. This development will fundamentally reshape the work of finance and accounting professionals. It will take on routine tasks while supporting more complex decision-making.
Similarly, the International Labour Organisation’s World of Work Series: Employment and Social Trends 2026 highlights how technological change, including AI, is redefining tasks and skill requirements across labour markets. The report suggests that AI will augment most roles rather than fully replace them. This trend underscores the growing need for professionals to develop new capabilities.
The imperative to provide effective oversight of machines will make trust, judgement and human leadership the true differentiators of future performance. As a profession, we must build on our existing strengths in these three areas. We must also further elevate our status as trusted advisers.
So, how can we do this?
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Maintain trust, ethics and integrity as the non-negotiable anchors of our profession
By creating confidence in financial information and governance, and upholding high standards of ethical conduct, accountants have long acted as guardians of trust. This role should assume an even greater part of our professional identity in an era of deepfakes and large-scale AI-enabled phishing attacks.
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Further hone our professional judgement
In an age of infinite information, discernment will be vital. It will help us identify critical insights, tell the real-world stories behind AI outputs, plan for different scenarios and enable robust organisational decision-making. These capabilities will remain central to the future of accounting.
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See our human skills as a future differentiator
Our expertise, knowledge and human skills will enable us to lead our organisations into the future. These skills include strategic and critical thinking, relationship building and collaboration. We can free up our time to develop and deploy those skills by taking advantage of cutting-edge technological tools. We should also be role models for others on AI adoption. For example, we can become competent and responsible users of AI systems.
Evolution of the accounting profession
As we transition into the future, accountancy and finance professionals will be able to reinvent ourselves in new and exciting ways. Instead of concentrating on compliance and historical reporting, our focus will shift to strategic advice and providing forward-looking insights. Less scorekeeper, more futurist.
We will also serve as responsible stewards of our organisations. We will support them, as well as society at large, in answering the important questions facing our world. By thinking critically, acting ethically and leading decisively, we can help our communities to thrive, whatever tomorrow brings.
To achieve this, we must remain open to change and proactive in shaping it. We must avoid simply reacting to change as it occurs. That means investing not only in technology, but also in people. We must ensure that professionals have the skills, confidence and mindset needed to lead in an increasingly complex environment.
The transformation will be demanding, but our destination is clear. We must create a profession that is more relevant, more trusted, forward-looking and more indispensable than ever before. That vision will help define the future of accounting while ensuring that finance professionals remain essential to organisations and society.