AI already does 80% of accounting work, so why are firms hiring MORE accountants?

27 Aug 2026 · 2 min

Watch on YouTube

1:46

In this YouTube monologue, Dan Novaes argues that artificial intelligence can already perform roughly 80% of the routine tasks that accountants spend their day on—such as data entry, reconciliation, tax preparation, and closing the books. He explains that every expense categorization, tax return draft, and error correction performed by accountants serves as training data that teaches AI the real‑world rules of accounting, effectively creating a free replacement. Consequently, the role of the accountant is shifting from manual processing to higher‑value activities: judgment, advisory work, and auditing the AI‑generated books. Novaes emphasizes that only a human CPA can sign off on audits and assume legal liability, making the CPA signature increasingly valuable. He advises current and aspiring accountants to move away from data‑entry lanes, obtain the necessary credentials, and leverage AI to scale their advisory services, which he predicts will double their earnings. Novaes also promotes his company, Mode Inc., which aims to pay people for the data they generate and educate them about AI’s impact on careers, inviting viewers to follow for more insights.

Chapters

AI can already do 80% of what a typical accountant does in a day. So why are accounting firms actually hiring more people, not less? The answer tells you exactly where this career is headed today. Think about what most accountants actually do all day. It's not the stuff you picture necessarily. It's data entry, reconciliation, tax prep, closing the books, moving numbers from one system to another, and then checking the work. However, AI can already do most of this. It's categorized expenses, draft basic returns, flags errors. Stuff that used to eat someone's whole afternoon now happens in seconds. But here's what no one is saying out loud, that AI learned from accountants, every expense someone categorized, every return someone filed, every mistake someone caught and fixed. And that's what taught the machine what the rules actually look like in the real world. Bookkeepers train their own replacement one spreadsheet at a time for free. So here's where I land on this. The job becomes less about typing and more about judgment, more about advisory work and consulting, auditing the books that AI already touched. And the one thing the machine still can't do, put its name on the line and take the liability. A machine can't go to court, a CPA can. So that signature is worth more and more every single year because of the risk. So if this is you or someone you know, get out of the data entry lane now and move towards advisory and more towards audit. Go get the credential that legally lets you be the signature. The way I see it is that this career is about to pay twice. If you're an accountant, you basically get to use AI and streamline and highly optimize the amount of clients that you can see. You can provide judgment on those clients, and then you put your signature on those audits. You are about to print cash if you are learning about AI and how it works within your business. And those are the people that are gonna win in this next stage. I'm Dan Novaes. My company is called Mode Inc., and we are built around providing you a second paycheck, paying regular people for the data they're already generating, and opening your eyes to what's happening in the AI industry. Follow along because I'm going to be keep breaking down what AI actually means for your job.