¶ Trends in Technology and AI
Welcome to Account Trends everybody . I'm Jason Stein , with Intuit Accountants . My co-host , David Bergstein , and I are excited to be with you every couple of weeks to share the latest news , interesting perspectives and hottest trends in the tax accounting world .
We'll have special guests on the show to help break these trends down and give you food for thought as you find new ways to deliver for your clients And , most importantly , we plan on having some fun while doing it . Welcome , All right . Welcome back to another episode of Account Trends everybody .
Jason Stein , your host with my partner in crime , Mr David Bergstein . How are you today , sir ?
I'm doing great today More pickleball each and every day as the warm weather gets warmer here in Florida , i keep getting a little bit better at dinking responsibly with people . What does that mean ? It means I stand outside what's called the kitchen and I drop shot right over the net instead of slamming . We talk about the future of accounting .
The future of pickleball is less odd shots and more dinking . All right , remember to dink .
Your lesson in pickleball folks . From David Bergstein , cpa . So , david , we were talking last time with Roman about the microwave technology . Tell me more about your Wi-Fi microwave . I hadn't heard of one of those yet .
Well , i picked up some new appliances recently . It was not only the microwave , which I still haven't figured out how to turn the Wi-Fi on . just to hold it down and it will automatically connect to my network . I haven't seen that , but I guess it's almost time for me to read the instructions , which I don't do .
The other appliance I got and you mentioned that with Roman before is the refrigerator . That too is connected to the Wi-Fi , but if I want to see what's in the refrigerator , all I can do is knock twice on the door and the light goes on , and I can see what's inside the refrigerator without opening the door .
That's crazy . That's crazy . Well , I want a perfect lead into our topic . today . We've invited Roman back to chat with us .
A second time .
Second .
Roman . Okay , same great person , different topic We're going to actually dive more into , because last time we talked about security and how technology plays a role , or how security plays a role in technology , but it kind of teased me a little bit . I want to talk more about technology , because Roman's an expert in this space too .
So , roman , welcome back to the show . We're glad you could spend some more time with us .
Well , thank you Jason and David . I'm glad I made it past one in a row .
So , roman , let's just dive right in . What are the biggest trends that you're seeing in technology ?
Well , i think I mentioned to David a while back that I went to the . I go to the Consumer Electronics Show every year and I cover that for the magazines And probably one of the biggest trends is AI being built into everything .
Now , artificial intelligence , augmented intelligence , you know , depending on your basically your definition can be a pretty wide range , but we see it being built in everything from toothbrushes to lawnmowers , to baby strollers , to cars , even to bath toilets .
Today There's artificial intelligence being built into everything to kind of help you , more so as a virtual assistant , as opposed to actually becoming like the iRobot thing that we all think about with general AI .
I think what you're saying is kind of interesting that everything relates to AI and I bet you the model's going to change for car dealers and everybody else , where they're going to charge you a monthly fee or an annual fee to update this software that controls whatever device you have . What do you think about that ?
Oh , absolutely Everything is like you know , it's a service model out there , and so it's the new thing we're looking for , and so as security becomes or these breaches become more sophisticated , the software developers who run these products whether it's the toothbrush or the car or your refrigerator has to be updated to protect against that as well as to add new
functionality to the device out there . So we see it to be the continued trend that AI is going to be in everything . So we're even seeing it inside of the accounting firms that we're seeing tools to help , like you know , into . it has tools that make QuickBooks easier to use , to help reconcile accounts , to import data , to create financial reports .
you know that things that we should be aware of . So you're going to see very specialized AI being put into virtually every application as well as every hardware device .
Let me hit you with a hard question . I've been constantly reading since November about this thing called ChatGBT , and today I just read an article that Microsoft's going to put AI and ChatGBT into everything . What does that mean ?
Well , remember the little paper clip that we used to see , like 10 years ago in Windows 7 or something like that , or 15 years ago . What it does is it provides you recommendations and advice in real time . So ChatGBT is a software product .
It's an application that came out of a company called OpenAI , and Microsoft is a significant investor in this OpenAI And what it does is it's kind of like a Google search on steroids , but it uses what's called a natural language interface .
So , david , as I'm talking to you or to Jason , i ask a question , it will come back and respond based on the information that it has been trained on . Okay , so , with ChatGBT , the 3.5 version that was released in November of 2022 , got a million subscribers the very first week It was trained prior to 2022 .
So the information that was in there basically is the history at that point and the answers .
Now it's not always correct , because people can post malicious information , but what it does is , if I ask you a question , it responds back in a very English-like , like you think you're talking to a human And so you think about the chat bots , like when you're chatting with someone for customer service .
I think this is where a lot of companies are seeing use for it , where , if there's common situations inside the accounting firm or common questions on support , for instance , on how to use QuickBooks , those things this ChatGBT program can be trained to respond to it like a human , and they just released the new version 4.0 in on March 15th of 2023 .
And basically that version actually adds a video to it , so if you show it pictures , it can actually recognize that as part of the chat discussion .
That is crazy . Appreciate it .
It's unbelievable .
Appreciate it . I've been playing with it And , like you said , it's a lot of good things as a personal assistant , but it still has wrong answers , depending on how you answer your question . But I loved it , for I said write a letter to my client on the business conditions in Honduras , and it did , and it did .
And then I said make it snappy , change the tenure of the letter , and it did . Then I said put it in Spanish , and it did . So I think it's kind of great . But then I asked some questions about people and it got it wrong . Yeah , yeah .
Well , it actually had me graduating from a different college . You know . I said you know write a biography of Roman Kepchuk over the last five years , and it wrote a biography based on the information of the internet , but it got the wrong university . It was out there .
The key here is is learning to use the tool gets us comfortable with doing a natural language interface with something , and I think what'll happen is is the next iterations we'll be able to train it with specific data that applies to us , so customer service will be able to actually listen today , you know , to previous calls or recorded calls and all that learn
what the right answer is and actually provide those solutions out there .
Yeah , and that makes me think of because when chatGPT came out , i think the Bing came right on its heels , right , and the Bing's been around right As a search tool . But the AI component got released , i think probably from competitive pressure , right .
And I remember stories where people were , you know , giving it a command and it would come back and present wrong information And then they would say , well , no , that's not accurate , it's actually this , and the bot would argue back with them . And that was because , well , how are we going to train these things that the bots arguing with us ?
Yeah , and that's . It needs moderators out there to do that . And so , jason , as you start out , the first question Microsoft will be integrating the things that they know are correct responses to things or correct recommendations , and I think the first place we'll see it in , like the Office 365 , will be , for instance , in Word or Excel .
Like in Word , you'll say , like just what David said , make this sound a little bit snappier or make it sound like it was written by a person from England , that kind of thing . So you know it would spell color with OUR or something like that , and so it'll actually learn personas . But it'll also help us correct things .
For instance , you know , it's like Grammarly on steroids , where that's saying you know your speaking , your words are a little bit . You know too , you know too high level , you know it looks like it's a college level .
So you can say with chat CBT , write this at a fifth grade level so everyone understands it , and it'll take your words and basically formulate them in such a way that a fifth grader could understand it .
Or maybe the other way around . I can tell it . Hey , explain to me , like I'm a moron , how quantum physics works . Right , yeah , and help us learn .
Yeah , and a lot of people look at it as being more of like a virtual assistant kind of thing . When you talk about this artificial . It'll helps us do better at our work And it'll happen in our Microsoft office applications . It'll happen in our accounting applications . As we build these , i'll say , as tech stacks that connect all the data out there .
It'll help us analyze our payroll spending , analyze our receivables , those kinds of things . You've just got to learn to ask the question , to do that and make sure that the data is protected and secure . Inside of that , you know , infrastructure .
Right , right . And if you're not sure about that , folks go back and listen to our last episode with Roman , where we talk more about preventing bad actors on your network . So , roman , i mean , this kind of naturally lends itself to the cloud question . Right , we've been having it , you know , pounded at us . Cloud is the future , the cloud is the future .
Is this why ?
Well , it's just one of the many reasons . It's actually one of . The results is what I believe . If you look over the last two decades the horsepower in the cloud has increased , the ability to build infrastructure has become cheaper , internet access is better .
It's created a global environment where people can come out and create applications that is available to all of us in the cloud . It allows for our clients to connect remotely , which works better than the cloud because the data is real time in both .
The accountant and the client can talk back and forth in real time , versus what , honestly , i used to do is put it on a flash drive and send it to my CPA . When we got advanced , we'd actually connect into their system , but they had to be there and doing that . Well , the cloud is the great democratizer .
It allows the best technology at an enterprise level to be available from a sole practitioner to a small firm , to anybody that's . A rural area with an internet connection has access to the same resources , technology and capabilities that the big players have that are out there .
I mean Dejeck .
¶ Future of Cloud Computing
Do you think there'll be a time when there will be no apps installed on anybody's tools , whether it be a desktop or a PC or a phone , that everything will be homogenized in the cloud ?
Yeah , i think it'll be in the cloud . It'll be in multiple clouds because , like , for instance , the way we are right now , we have our research in one place , we have our accounting product in another .
Microsoft runs our office applications , but when we connect through the device , whether it looks like a laptop , it'll look something like a laptop or our smartphone , but it'll prove the security that it's Roman or it's Jason or David connecting , and then it'll streamline the access to all these different locations where the data is .
But from your viewpoint , it looks like homogenously , it's all available through the screen and the keyboard . That's right there . I think it's the only way , longterm , that we can secure all the data , the devices and those kinds of things .
And so the cloud , like I said , it lets everyone have access to all the resources , and today we think it needs to be enterprise class resources , because it needs to be fast enough to be able to pull this data , interpret it , use the AI tools in real time , and you're not going to see that on a five year old laptop .
Right Now , that's , yeah , that's , i think , spot on .
And I tell people all the time , like , the reason why you want to be in the cloud is one , in many ways it's more secure , and in two , it's the place where we can , where companies can and are innovating most effectively And that's within their own platform that also cross collaboratively , because you can connect things together much more easily and much more
securely in a cloud environment , and so- .
And you can update them in real time , so that when people connect to the firm's data resources they're getting the most current application and the most conversion . They're going to the same place , as opposed to back .
In the olden days we used to make copies and put them on our laptop , go in the field and work , come back And then , like David would be working on a different section and I would sing something and then David would sing and overwrite my stuff In the cloud .
Everyone's working concurrently on the most real time data that is there , so it's just a better environment .
And again , the economics have made it such that for anybody who's managing their own network today , they have to plan like five years out with a BIOS server , they have to plan for mergers , for growth , they have to plan for IT resources to update and maintain all that , versus in the cloud .
You're paying for a workstation that has internet connectivity and enough RAM to load it , and today we're actually recommending every computer you buy today have at least an i7 processor and 16 gig of RAM .
The reason being is we still need an operating system there and an antivirus , and Windows is just getting bigger and bigger and bigger out there , and so we just want to make sure that , since these laptops or desktops are lasting five to seven years , that you have adequate performance and capability to make sure it continues working through the life of that device .
Yeah , So does a Chromebook fit in with that scenario . You don't have to worry about installing anything on it .
It depends on the application you're using .
I will tell you that , true , windows applications work fine on a Chromebook , but a lot of our accounting applications are legacy applications that have a Windows-like interface , and so those Chromebooks are using emulators to project on the screen , and so what we find is older accounting applications or legacy applications tend to work squirrely on a Chromebook , which
means when the IT person's there , it's gonna be fine , but when they walk out the door , all of a sudden I can't open my windows or I can't expand it or scroll over to another thing , and so I think for the next couple of years , we're still recommending buying PCs rather than that , just because there's times when accountants don't have an internet connection if
they're working in the field or client site , or it's a poor connection I mentioned . I use my mobile hotspot when I am on the road all the time instead of public Wi-Fi , and sometimes it is darn darn slow .
What size monitors should people be buying these days ?
You know , the best advice I have on this is you need to have monitor space that is capable of seeing all the things you need to do to finish projects . So today , for people , for instance , who are tax people , we recommend dual oversized monitors , probably 2.28 . Now there are big 49-inch monitors that are curved and widescreen that cost like $600 .
But we find for that $600 , you get actually two 28 or 30-inch monitors that are flat panel and the bezel is very small so between them you can't see . But for that same $600 , you probably get 40% more screen real estate .
And the advantage of that is you can have , for instance , if you're a tax person , last year's tax return here , this year's scan , source documents , this year's input . you can have your collaboration software open here So you can work with the people who are doing that . If you keep a time sheet you can keep practice management .
No time sheets .
I wonder some people you know there's some people that are we cannot convince to throw away their time sheet . That's true , unfortunately , Yeah but they could have , for instance , the fixed asset schedule open down there , their research .
You know all those things at once And Which have to realize is when everything's there you're very quick at working because when you pull a number off the fixed asset schedule , it's eighteen thousand three hundred twenty one .
When you put it right here , instead of hot keying back and forth , your eyes will always double-check and verify and it's much more quick , quicker . Honestly . If you think about spending six hundred dollars for dual monitors , the ROI that's probably measured in minutes , not hours , based on what the cost of you know the professionals time is today .
Yeah , that's standard issue for us . That add into it We we all have two monitors plus plus the laptop , and so , yeah , i did almost any line of work right . That's gonna be beneficial , i completely agree with you . What about printers ? one of those gonna finally be unnecessary .
Well , i think well in the kitchen will start to see food printers that do pizza and chocolate . But the reality is is no one should have a printer in their office anymore , unless it's for their kids school projects , which those are going digital too .
We had , i mean , over the last five years , we were getting away from printers and doing multifunction devices that had scanners built in or Faxes , because if , for instance , you're an agriculture for some reason my ag , the bike firms that do a lot of ad clients They still use faxes , and then with the IRS , you still have to use faxes , which is .
But we found that the need for printing today is almost , almost pretty much obsolete out there , and So , and even some of our smartphones today They have the ability to have like scanning software built in . Yeah , so you can take pictures with documents .
You know Microsoft I think it's called ink has it where it'll actually do a scan , not like , not like just a little check that we used to do for our banking , but it actually takes pictures of Contracts of 1099s , double twos . It'll correct the keystone , so that way you send that to your accountant .
You know , like I'm missing a take K1 or something like that . It actually corrects it so that it's scannable out there . So I think it's more important to educate your people On how to use these other digital tools instead of a printer right and the scan tools are free .
I feel like my camera comes with it . I can , i can push a button on my regular camera on my phone and it says scan document . And it does it . It Corrects that keystone .
It's hard to describe if nobody , if you're you know what keystone is never straight on it , so right your angle where it doesn't . It's a . What do you call it ? I wrote a dendron or something . Actually that's a flower , it's a parallelogram of some kind . Something been a ?
number years in geometry . Off-center and the depth is different because you're holding the phone , you know , like maybe at an angle or something . So having that Capability just gives you a cleaner scan , which , to your point , especially in our profession , you're , if you're not using scan and import technology at this point , yep , what ? what's going on ?
right , because it's not , it's not your daddy's Cadillac , it's not what it was , you know , 10 , 15 years ago . It's . It evolved dramatically and it's a significant time saver that a lot of firms are using to automate compliance work and Collaborating with clients is right there with it , right . So I love the tie in there .
And , yeah , i agree , i don't , i haven't . I haven't had a printer in my office since the pandemic and I remember during the pantomap people would send me something like , hey , can you print and sign this and scan it back in . I'm like , can you just what this ? and , doc , you sign ?
Yeah , cuz I'm not , i'm not printing anything here exactly , sign it with your finger and be done with it . If not , it tells you about the technology of the person you're working with it . Yeah , right way behind the curves , like maybe we have to find a new bank or something . If they can't , seriously , doc , you sign it .
Well , i think that's a good place to finish off the show , roman . Really awesome Conversation about technology from from AI and software and firmware all the way to hardware . So so thanks again for for bringing your your rich Knowledge on this subject to our listeners .
No , my pleasure . I guess it's always good to see you , jason , and you , david you as well .
Pleasure to have you here , looking forward to next time . Roman everybody , thanks for listening , until next time . Thanks for listening . If you enjoyed this episode , please follow us on Apple podcasts or Spotify . If you want to learn more about any of the topics discussed on the show , visit Intuit accountants .
Comm forward slash podcast Account Trends is produced and edited by Luke Johnston . Copyright Intuit 2023 .