{
  "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register",
  "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/accountants-and-auditors/",
  "methodology": "https://cookedindex.com/methodology",
  "notice": "Verdicts are re-examined as evidence accumulates. Re-fetch before relying on this; the page above always carries the current score.",
  "scored_at": "2026-08-11",
  "model": "claude-opus-5",
  "occupation": {
    "title": "Accountants and Auditors",
    "soc_code": "13-2011",
    "category": "Business",
    "us_employment": 1449500,
    "median_annual_wage": 83680
  },
  "verdict": "EXPOSED",
  "risk_resistance": 42,
  "contested": false,
  "near_boundary": false,
  "dimensions": {
    "task_resistance": 7,
    "embodiment": 2,
    "liability_shield": 11,
    "trust_premium": 10,
    "judgment_accountability": 12
  },
  "reasoning": {
    "task_resistance": "A 7 reflects that bank and intercompany reconciliations, three-way match testing, sampling selection, depreciation schedules, and Form 1120/1065 preparation from a trial balance are now largely tool-driven, while a residue of hours — walkthroughs of a client's controls, chasing an unexplained accrual through emails and contracts, drafting footnote disclosures for a new revenue arrangement — still requires someone assembling facts nobody has coded yet, which is why this sits at the top of the automatable band rather than at 3.",
    "embodiment": "A 2 covers the thin physical tail: inventory observation counts on a warehouse floor at year-end, fixed-asset existence checks, and cash counts at a client site, which for the median accountant is a few days a year against a calendar of ERP screens, Excel, and workpaper software.",
    "liability_shield": "An 11 sits just inside the licensed band because the CPA licence is legally load-bearing only at the top of the workpaper — the engagement partner signs the opinion and faces PCAOB sanction, state board discipline, and Section 10A exposure, while the staff and senior accountants who do most of the tick-and-tie, and the entire uncredentialled corporate accounting population under a controller, hold no licence that anyone must have on file.",
    "trust_premium": "A 10 reflects that clients rehire the partner and the controller keeps the CFO's confidence through years of knowing which estimates that company fudges, but the reconciliation and return-prep work below that is routinely offshored to shared service centres and rotated among staff without a client noticing — the relationship carries the engagement, not the deliverable.",
    "judgment_accountability": "A 12 marks the genuine discretion that exists — setting materiality thresholds, deciding whether a contingency is probable and estimable under ASC 450, taking a tax position on economic substance, judging whether management's going-concern plans are realistic — against the fact that most of these calls run through GAAP, IRS regulation, and firm methodology templates with a reviewer above the preparer, so the ambiguous call is escalated rather than owned by the person who found it."
  },
  "rationale": "The bulk of hours at the national median go to reconciliations, journal entries, transaction tie-outs, variance schedules, tax return prep and workpaper documentation — all structured text-and-number work that AI plus modern ledger software already does at usable quality. What survives is the part where a licensed human signs: the audit opinion, the tax position taken under ambiguous law, the materiality and going-concern call, and the conversation with a client or audit committee about what the numbers actually mean. This title bundles the staff accountant (highly exposed) with the CPA partner and controller (well protected); the modal worker sits closer to the exposed end.",
  "outlook": "Headcount in preparation and testing roles shrinks materially over ten years while demand holds for licensed signers, controllers and specialty tax advisors — the pyramid narrows at the bottom, and the path from junior to signer gets steeper.",
  "what_would_raise_it": {
    "levers": [
      {
        "dimension": "liability_shield",
        "change": "PCAOB/SEC or state boards adopting an explicit rule that AI-generated audit evidence and analytics require a named engagement partner's documented review and sign-off (PCAOB already has an active standard-setting project on the use of technology-assisted analysis, and AS 1201 supervision requirements); plus state board rules that tax positions produced by software must be signed by a licensed preparer with Circular 230 liability attaching personally",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 4
      },
      {
        "dimension": "liability_shield",
        "change": "Audit-quality insurers and peer-review programs requiring human attestation that AI outputs were tested, making uninsured AI-only workpapers effectively unusable in litigation defense",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 2
      },
      {
        "dimension": "task_resistance",
        "change": "Genuine two-tier structure: if reconciliations, tie-outs and return prep are fully automated, the residual measured job becomes materiality judgment, going-concern assessment, fraud-risk skepticism, and audit-committee communication — the tier AI cannot own. This raises the score only for those who remain employed; headcount falls at the staff tier",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 4
      },
      {
        "dimension": "judgment_accountability",
        "change": "Expanded ICFR and fraud-detection expectations (post-Wirecard/FTX enforcement, SEC clawback and internal-control rules) pushing more explicitly ambiguous calls onto the named signer, plus any rule making the auditor accountable for evaluating the client's AI-generated accounting estimates",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 3
      },
      {
        "dimension": "trust_premium",
        "change": "Audit committees and lenders specifying a human-partner-reviewed opinion in engagement letters or debt covenants; some private-equity and bank lenders already demand named-partner accountability rather than firm-level attestation",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 2
      }
    ],
    "ceiling_note": "Every lever concentrates value in the licensed signer. The modal worker in this SOC is a staff accountant whose hours are exactly the automated tier; liability and judgment gains accrue to a shrinking partner/controller layer, so the occupation's overall score can rise while employment in it falls."
  },
  "adjudication": null,
  "employment_history": {
    "points": [
      {
        "y": 2017,
        "emp": 1241000,
        "wage": 69350
      },
      {
        "y": 2018,
        "emp": 1259930,
        "wage": 70500
      },
      {
        "y": 2019,
        "emp": 1280700,
        "wage": 71550
      },
      {
        "y": 2020,
        "emp": 1274620,
        "wage": 73560
      },
      {
        "y": 2021,
        "emp": 1318550,
        "wage": 77250
      },
      {
        "y": 2022,
        "emp": 1402420,
        "wage": 78000
      },
      {
        "y": 2023,
        "emp": 1435770,
        "wage": 79880
      },
      {
        "y": 2024,
        "emp": 1448290,
        "wage": 81680
      },
      {
        "y": 2025,
        "emp": 1449500,
        "wage": 83680
      }
    ],
    "from": 2017,
    "to": 2025,
    "change_pct": 16.8,
    "comparable_from": 2019,
    "spans_soc_revision": true
  },
  "pivots": [
    {
      "slug": "personal-financial-advisors",
      "title": "Personal Financial Advisors",
      "verdict": "EXPOSED",
      "risk_resistance": 52,
      "median_wage": 105070,
      "overlap": 83,
      "skills_to_close": [
        "Operations Analysis",
        "Management of Financial Resources",
        "Service Orientation",
        "Social Perceptiveness"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms"
}