Of All The Professions AI Is Disrupting, Accounting Has The Worst Math

InnovationOf All The Professions AI Is Disrupting, Accounting Has The Worst MathByJatin Narang,Forbes Councils Member.for Forbes Technology CouncilCOUNCIL POSTExpertise from Forbes Councils members, operated under license. Opinions expressed are those of the author. | Membership (fee-based)May 21, 2026, 08:30am EDTJatin Narang, CEO of Verito.com, a leader in private hosting & managed IT solutions, empowering accounting firms in the digital era. gettyEvery white-collar profession is having a similar conversation right now. AI is eating the entry-level work that used to train the next generation. Consulting firms are writing about it in Harvard Business Review. Law firms are debating it in Above the Law. Investment banks are building systems like Project Mercury to automate the first two years of an analyst's job.Accounting's version of this problem is not like the others. It's much worse. And the reason is demographic, not just technological. Accounting is being compressed from both sides, while AI eats away at the ladder. The Collision Being FacedWhen we look at four key professional services industries having this conversation right now, a stark divergence emerges.In law, there's an oversupply of associates. More law students graduate each year than Big Law can absorb. Similarly, consulting has hundreds of thousands of applications a year. McKinsey, Bain and BCG could redesign the analyst role 10 times over and still fill seats. In investment banking, OpenAI's Project Mercury automates junior analyst work, and the replacement applicants are already interviewing. ​Accounting is different. The AICPA reports that 75% of current CPAs are eligible to retire within 15 years. Over 300,000 accountants have left the profession since 2019. CPA exam candidates fell from roughly 50,000 in 2010 to 32,000 in 2021. The pipeline has been shrinking for a decade, before AI became a factor. ​Now add the AI pressure. Stanford Digital Economy Lab research p...