"The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated" should be the riposte of the accountant.

Machine learning and AI will lessen the bookkeeping element and most advances have been the digitising of manual processes. 

Accountants can them move to the consulting and leadership role using analytics to find the insights and decision-making ability to address the compelling ways to double profit i.e.

  • Increase revenues by 5%
  • Decrease Cost of Sales by 5%
  • Decrease direct costs by 5%
  • Decrease indirect costs (overheads) by 5%

Try it- the bottom line will at least double.

Machine learning and AI can free up the accountant to spend more on achieving those goals. 

Remember though- there is no shortcut; if the data is incomplete, inaccurate, inaccessible,  out-of-date then get that sorted first. Otherwise machine-learning just automates mistakes.