{"id":6780,"date":"2026-01-13T10:13:28","date_gmt":"2026-01-13T10:13:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/?p=6780"},"modified":"2026-01-13T10:13:30","modified_gmt":"2026-01-13T10:13:30","slug":"as-ai-advances-why-is-it-still-better-to-use-a-human-accountant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/as-ai-advances-why-is-it-still-better-to-use-a-human-accountant\/","title":{"rendered":"As AI advances, why is it still better to use a human accountant?"},"content":{"rendered":"

We are now in that period of time between the start of the calendar year and the beginning of the tax year.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

All those financial chores you had to address last year will be back in front of you before you know it.<\/p>\n

While it might be tempting to try and do everything yourself with AI support, you may be at increased risk of penalties if you stop using human accountants.<\/p>\n

What are the dangers of using AI for my finances?<\/strong><\/h3>\n

With each new iteration that gets released, AI is able to do more impressive things in a way that feels compellingly real.<\/p>\n

Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT are able to increasingly mimic human conversation, while video generation AI, like Sora, creates deceptively realistic videos.<\/p>\n

More people than ever are considering using AI to handle their finances, with some treating it as a source of advice and others relying on it to fully complete filings.<\/p>\n

However, AI is far from perfect and continued controversies and discussions around the implementation of guardrails and their potential limitations are causing many to rethink their utilisation of the technology.<\/p>\n

A more light-hearted aspect of these issues manifested recently when an AI-generated police report saw a police officer turn into a frog because the programme used to write it detected music from the Disney film The Princess and the Frog<\/em>.<\/a><\/p>\n

This typifies the issue with using consumer-facing AI and LLMs to complete tasks that they were not designed to handle.<\/p>\n

If you utilise AI or LLMs to compile your tax returns or give you financial advice, you may find yourself facing down an error as glaring as a ranine police officer.<\/p>\n

Without the expert oversight of an accountant, you may not notice such an error, but you can rest assured that HMRC will spot it and issue the appropriate punishment.<\/p>\n

If AI is bad, why do accountants use it?<\/strong><\/h3>\n

None of this is to say that AI systems are without merit and they have been successfully adopted by many professionals across a range of industries.<\/p>\n

The main issue facing finances in 2026 is the inappropriate use of generic AI and LLMs.<\/p>\n

If accountants are using AI, they will be utilising bespoke systems designed to make mundane and tedious tasks simpler so that they can spend more time and energy focusing on high-value work.<\/p>\n

This is only possible due to the level of expertise that the accountants have, which allows them to sense check any information that might be compiled by any automated system.<\/p>\n

A good accountant would not rely solely on AI to process your financial information and would only utilise systems that have been designed to assist with work.<\/p>\n

There is also an issue of data protection that generic AI and LLMs routinely fail to uphold.<\/p>\n

If you upload your sensitive data to a consumer-facing AI or LLM, you cannot be sure that the data will stay confidential, as it may be used to train future iterations of the AI.<\/p>\n

Accountants will only use systems that comply with GDPR guidelines and would not expose your confidential data to unauthorised parties through unsecure systems.<\/p>\n

AI is also no substitute for the level of expert advice that our team of professionals can give you that matches your unique financial situation.<\/p>\n

Speak to our team today to get tailored financial support. <\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We are now in that period of time between the start of the calendar year and the beginning of the tax year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6783,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,125],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6780"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6780"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6780\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6781,"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6780\/revisions\/6781"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}