Accounting and auditing in the age of AI.
A field map. The tools. The benchmarks. What it means for the profession.
How many of you have used ChatGPT or Claude for finance work this week?
Hands up.
What you'll get in 45 minutes
Three things, in this order.
A quick note on us
Accord Partners is building the first AI-powered audit firm in MENA.
Global · finance & reporting · 2024 → 2027
Companies piloting or using AI in financial reporting today, projected within three years.
Saudi Arabia · the forcing functions
Three reasons Saudi will not wait — and one principle.
Part one of three
The capabilities.
Six layers. Each does something the layer below cannot. Each costs more.
From browser to autonomous agent
Six layers. Pick the right one for the work.
Layer 00 · Chat in a browser
ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini.
Open the tab. Paste the question. Read the answer. Frontier reasoning models now pass all three CFA exam levels.
Quick research. Drafting memos. Explaining a standard. Translating jargon. Brainstorming a risk list. Free, or near it.
Hallucinates on numbers. No memory of your client. No access to your working papers. No audit trail. Anything you paste in, leaves your control.
ChatGPT · audit research in 8 seconds
Under IFRS 15, when a Saudi construction firm receives a 30% advance for a 3-year project, how do I recognise revenue — input or output method? Cite the standard.
For long-term construction under IFRS 15, performance obligations are usually satisfied over time (IFRS 15.35), so revenue is recognised using progress measurement — not on cash collection.
The 30% advance is a contract liability until earned (IFRS 15.106).
Method: input method (cost-to-cost) is standard for construction, because outputs are hard to measure mid-project. Output method only fits when milestones are independently verifiable (IFRS 15.B14–B19).
Caveat: verify the contract has no termination clauses that would defeat "over time" criteria. Check IFRS 15.35(c).
Layer 01 · Workspace integrations
Claude Plugin for Excel. Microsoft Copilot. Google Sheets Gemini.
AI inside the tool you already work in. Reads your workbook — every tab, every formula dependency — then explains, audits, or updates it with cell-level citations.
Variance analysis. Formula audits across nested tabs. Updating assumptions without breaking dependencies. Multi-tab models built in a single prompt — see next slide.
Audit-grade accountability. Engagement-level memory across files. SOCPA workpaper templates. Still costs ~$20–$30 per user per month on top of Excel.
3-year financial model for a fictitious Saudi restaurant chain · 8 tabs · fully formula-linked · built in one prompt
Layer 02 · Vertical AI tools
DataSnipper. Trullion. Vic.ai.
Software built for one audit or finance workflow, done deeply. The point solutions partners already buy.
One job, done deeply. Sample testing. IFRS 15 revenue recognition. AP automation. Bought and bolted in within days, not months.
Each tool sees only its slice. Three vendors. Three contracts. Three logins. No shared memory of your engagement. Arabic and SOCPA workpaper support are thin to zero.
Layer 02 · Vertical AI tools · in production today
Layer 02 · Vertical AI tools · in production today
Layer 02 · Vertical AI tools · in production today
Layer 03 · Finance-specific agents
Claude for Financial Services. OpenAI + PwC. Thomson Reuters CoCounsel.
Purpose-built for finance. Trained on filings. Connected to authoritative content (FASB, IFRS, IRS, ZATCA when ready).
Layer 04 · Autonomous knowledge-work agents
Claude Cowork.
The AI no longer just answers — it works. You point it at a folder, give it a brief, and it reads, organises, drafts, and produces the file. Word documents, PDFs, Excel models, working papers — generated on your machine, with you in the loop.
Reads your local files, your client folders, your draft working papers. Drafts reports, reconciliations, memos. Connects to Box, DocuSign, CoCounsel, Harvey. Built for non-technical work — no code required.
Newer than the coding agents. Permission boundaries still being learned. Best for tasks where you can verify the output. Not yet a substitute for a partner's review.
For advanced users: Claude Code and OpenAI Codex remain the heavy-duty coding agents. Cursor and Replit are excellent for building dashboards and interactive experiences for your customers and internal teams.
Layer 05 · Proprietary audit platforms
Built ground-up. Owned by the firm. Not for sale.
Every serious audit firm is now building, not buying. The leaders set the pace; we are doing it for Saudi.
Inside Accord OS
Workflows plus agents. Both, not either.
Accord OS has two halves. One half is the engine. The other half is the team.
Workflow without agents is software. Agents without a workflow are toys. Combined, they are the next-generation audit and accounting firm.
Named roles. Real engagements.
Four agents we run today. Each does the work of a person.
Part two of three
The benchmarks.
Hard numbers. Which models actually win, on which finance task.
Chartered Financial Analyst exam · Dec 2025
CFA Levels I, II and III — passed by frontier reasoning models. Some clear all three with near-perfect scores.
Human CFA Level III pass rate: 56%. AI completed Level III essays in minutes. Source: Columbia / RPI / UNC, December 2025. Models tested: OpenAI o4-mini, Google Gemini 2.5 Pro, Anthropic Claude Opus 4.
May 2026 · Public benchmarks
Different tasks. Different winners.
| Task | Winner | Score | Runner-up | Score | Human |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FinanceBench (10-K Q&A) | OpenAI o3 | ~90% | GPT-5 | ~88% | — |
| Finance Agent (analyst tasks) | Claude Opus 4.7 | 64.4% | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | 63.3% | — |
| FinQA (table reasoning) | Fin-R1* | 76.0% | GPT-4.1 | ~68% | 91% |
| CFA Level I | Gemini 3.0 Pro | 97.6% | GPT-5 | 96.1% | 43% pass |
| CFA Level III essay | Gemini 3.0 Pro | 92.0% | Claude Opus | ~75% | 56% pass |
| DocVQA (document images) | Claude Opus 4.7 | 93.8% | GPT-5.4 | 91.1% | ~95% |
| Arabic reasoning (MMMLU) | Claude Mythos | 92.7% | Gemini 3.1 Pro | ~91% | — |
*Fin-R1 = open-source finance reasoning model (Alibaba). All other rows are general-purpose frontier models. Scores from Vals AI, awesomeagents.ai, arxiv:2512.08270, MindStudio (May 2026).
What the benchmarks tell us
Three patterns. Each changes how you should staff.
A practical cheat sheet
Pick the model that fits the job.
| If you need to… | Use | Why it wins |
|---|---|---|
| Research a standard, draft a memo, translate jargon | Claude Opus 4.7 · GPT-5.5 | Best at long-form reasoning and clear English/Arabic writing. |
| Ask questions of a 10-K, audited financials, ZATCA filing | OpenAI o3 · GPT-5 | Top of FinanceBench for filings Q&A. Strong citation discipline. |
| Audit a workbook — formulas, tabs, dependencies | Claude Plugin for Excel | Reads multi-tab workbooks with cell-level citations. |
| Read scanned working papers, invoices, contracts | Claude Opus 4.7 | Best on document images and OCR (DocVQA 93.8%). |
| Study for the CPA, CFA, SOCPA, ACCA exam | Gemini 3.0 Pro | Highest scores on certification exams across the board. |
| Work in Arabic — explain, summarise, draft | Claude (latest) · Gemini 3.x | Best Arabic reasoning today. Still verify numbers. |
| Production audit work on a client engagement | Proprietary platform | None of the above alone. You need workflow + audit trail + partner sign-off. |
Rule of thumb: open with the cheapest model that fits, escalate if the answer feels thin. Always cross-check numbers against the source.
Part three of three
What this means for the profession.
The shape of the next decade. What students must learn. What practitioners must do this quarter.
Three forces, one profession
The numbers are not subtle.
What goes to AI · what stays human
Your day rearranges. The job does not disappear.
The bar moves up. Junior typing becomes senior judgment. The work is more intellectually demanding, not less.
If you are starting out · 5 tips
Your career does not shrink. It shifts.
If you run a firm · 4 tips
Modernising alone is harder than modernising with us.
Now
Questions.
Your questions are usually smarter than my answers.
Before we end
Three years from now, 99 of every 100 companies will be using AI in financial reporting.
The question is not whether the audit and accounting profession changes. The question is who is ready for the profession that comes next.