Hi! This is something which make me to think are we in the age of learning or adopting! Both are different! Yesterday's AI Tax Audit seminar left me both inspired and concerned. While listening to the 60-year-old speaker (let's call him Sir) passionately explain how AI tools are revolutionizing office automation, I realized we're at a critical juncture in our profession.

The Reality Check

Sir shared something profound: "At 60, I'm ready to learn AI, but if you think you can handle everything yourself, sorry my friend - you don't need AI to replace you. Your colleague will replace you within a year.

Let's be the CAs who work smarter, not just harder.

This hits different when you've just survived another peak season of 18-hour workdays, missed family dinners, and the endless cycle of compliance deadlines.

Sound familiar?

Some Insights from the session and let me share my view on his session and wordings

Generic Agents vs. Agentic AI: The Game Changer for Professionals

Generic Agents: The Basic Helpers

  • What they do: Follow pre-set rules and perform specific tasks

  • Example: Auto-categorizing expenses, sending GST deadline reminders

  • Limitation: Need constant human input and monitoring

Agentic AI: The Smart Partners

  • What they do: Think, plan, and execute complex workflows independently

  • Example: Automatically reconciling bank statements, flagging anomalies, preparing draft audit reports, AND following up with clients for missing documents

  • Game-changer: Works while you sleep, learns from patterns, adapts to changes

How this helps?

  • Sends smart reminders to clients for missing documents

  • Flags potential issues BEFORE they become problems

  • What takes 6 hours manually? Done in 30 minutes

  • Risk assessment and sampling automatically generated

  • AI handles routine queries while you focus on complex advisory.

  • When you're not drowning in data entry, you can focus on more productivity.

Sir's humility struck me - a senior professional crediting his students for helping him to adopt AI. This reminded me: Learning isn't about age; it's about attitude.

❝

"AI will not replace humans who work with AI. AI will replace humans who work with machines and like machines."

This isn't just a catchy phrase - it's our professional survival guide. When we work like machines (repetitive, rule-based, without strategic thinking), we become replaceable. When we work WITH AI as intelligent partners, we become irreplaceable.

Final Thoughts

As I write this, it's 11 PM on 12th October another late night in CA life. But tomorrow, I'm implementing my first AI workflow for client document collection. Not because it's trendy, but because I refuse to let compliance deadlines control my life anymore.
The question isn't whether AI will change our profession - it already has. The question is: Will you lead the change or be forced to adapt to it?
Remember Sir's wisdom: If you think you can do everything yourself, someone else (probably your colleague who embraced AI) will prove you wrong within a year.
Let's be the CAs who work smarter, not just harder.

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