Treasury and cash management
Keeping pace with robots
Long relegated to performing mundane tasks, AI fi nally seems set to transform the treasury function across business. Companies everywhere are rushing ahead to exploit new developments in areas like machine learning, a potential boon for overworked treasurers everywhere. Not that the path ahead is necessarily clear, especially when automation risks sweeping some human staff out of a job altogether. Abi Millar speaks to Sarah Boyce, associate director, policy and technical, at the Association of Corporate Treasurers (ACT) to understand the risks and benefi ts of embracing artifi cial helpers.
machine learning technologies on the cusp of going mainstream, you didn’t have to go far to encounter gloomy predictions about robot takeovers and mass job losses.
A
A 2015 report by the Lords’ Select Committee on Digital Skills estimated that over a third of UK jobs were at risk of being automated over the next two decades. Two years later, a report by McKinsey estimated that some 400–800 million people could be displaced by automation globally – and forced to find new jobs by 2030. Strikingly, many of these people could be white- collar professionals, their roles imperilled by machines just like factory or agricultural workers
few years back, the term ‘artificial intelligence’ may have carried a vaguely threatening, dystopian quality. With
before them. According to a joint 2015 study by the University of Oxford and Deloitte, the most vulnerable individuals will be those performing back office or administrative functions. The study’s ‘calculator’ estimated that accountants have a 95% chance of losing their jobs – rising to 97% for bookkeepers and payroll managers.
Robot takeover? These predictions haven’t been revised exactly – in fact, the pandemic has conspicuously accelerated the trend towards automation. Even so, our growing familiarity with AI is giving rise to a more encouraging counter-narrative. Simply put, while many jobs may indeed be displaced, a wave of new roles will emerge in their stead. “Any job losses from automation are likely to be broadly offset in the long
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Finance Director Europe /
www.ns-businesshub.com Finance Director Europe /
www.ns-businesshub.com
Fit Ztudio/
Shutterstock.com
Fit Ztudio/
Shutterstock.com
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