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Will AI replace accountants?

BLS expects accountant jobs to grow 5% to 2035 even with AI. What that means for 2030 and 2050, which work is exposed, and what to do.

BBranson·Oct 30, 2026·5 min read

Quick answer: No, not on current evidence. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) projects employment of accountants and auditors to grow 5 percent from 2025 to 2035, from 1,595,200 jobs to 1,674,600, faster than the 3 percent average for all occupations. BLS expects AI to automate routine tasks such as data entry, but says this is not expected to reduce overall demand for accountants.

What the numbers say to 2035

The BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, last updated in October 2026, counted 1,595,200 accountants and auditors in the US in 2025, with a median pay of $83,680 a year in May 2025. It projects 79,400 more of those jobs by 2035, and about 115,300 openings a year over the decade.

BLS has already priced AI into that forecast. It says some routine accounting tasks may be automated as cloud computing, AI, and blockchain spread, but that "this change is not expected to reduce overall demand" for these workers. Instead it expects advisory and analytical work to become a bigger part of the job as routine work such as data entry is automated.

That is a very different picture from the clerk side of the field. If your question is about bookkeepers and accounts clerks, we cover that in Is AI replacing bookkeepers?

Will AI replace accountants by 2030 or 2050?

For 2030, the best evidence is the BLS projection above. It runs to 2035, it already accounts for AI, and it still shows growth. The profession expects change inside that window. In Thomson Reuters' Future of Professionals report, published in June 2025 from a survey of 2,275 professionals in tax, accounting, audit, legal and related fields, 80 percent said AI will have a high or transformational impact on their profession within five years. Big impact on the work is not the same as fewer jobs.

For 2050, or 50 years out, the honest answer is that nobody knows. BLS projections cover ten years. Any number you see for 2050 is a guess, not a forecast. What research can tell you is the shape of the change. A March 2023 Goldman Sachs Research report estimated that about two thirds of US jobs are exposed to some degree of AI automation, and that most exposed jobs have 25 to 50 percent of their workload that AI could do. In its baseline, 7 percent of US employment would be substituted by AI, 63 percent complemented, and 30 percent unaffected. The same report notes that new occupations created after past technology shifts account for most long run job growth.

So the likely path for accountants is less manual work per person, more review and advice, and a job that looks different by 2050. That is not the same as no accountants.

Which accounting work is most exposed

Exposure follows the task, not the job title. From what we see building agents inside client books, the split is consistent.

Most exposed:

  • Bookkeeping and data entry from invoices, receipts, and bank feeds.
  • Accounts payable: reading bills, coding them, and matching them to purchase orders.
  • Accounts receivable follow up and invoice chasing.
  • Bank reconciliation and the first pass of month-end close preparation.

Least exposed:

  • Judgment calls on accounting treatment, estimates, and tax positions.
  • Audit opinions and sign off, where a licensed person is accountable. BLS notes that any accountant who files a report with the Securities and Exchange Commission must be a licensed CPA.
  • Advisory work: cash flow, planning, and explaining the numbers to an owner who has to make a decision.
  • Client relationships and the trust that comes with them.

A good rule of thumb: if a task has a clear right answer that can be checked against a document, AI can do most of it. If the task needs someone to be responsible for the answer, a person stays in the loop.

Will AI replace forensic and tax accountants?

Forensic accountants investigate financial crimes such as securities fraud and embezzlement, and BLS notes they often work with police and attorneys and may testify in court. AI helps them sort through large volumes of records, but the work ends in a person explaining evidence to a court. The 2026 Anti-Fraud Technology Benchmarking Report from the ACFE and SAS, published in March 2026 from a survey of 713 anti-fraud professionals, found that only 16 percent of organizations use generative AI as an anti-fraud tool, while 58 percent plan to. Only 6 percent felt completely confident explaining how their AI and machine learning models make anti-fraud decisions. In a field that ends in testimony, that gap keeps people in charge.

Tax accountants sit inside the BLS accountants and auditors group, so the 5 percent growth figure covers them. Tax preparers are a separate group: BLS data on O*NET counted 95,800 in 2025 and projects faster than average growth to 2035. AI is good at gathering documents and filling in forms. Tax positions, planning, and dealing with the tax authority still need someone who signs their name.

What this means for accounting firms

For accountants, the job is moving toward review and advice. The person who can supervise automated work, catch the entry that looks wrong, and explain why to a client is worth more than the person who typed it in.

For firm owners, the practical move is to take the routine work off your team's plate and spend those hours on review, advisory, and growing the client base. Thomson Reuters' 2026 Future of Professionals report found that 74 percent of professionals already use AI tools every week, and one third of lawyers, accountants, and compliance professionals use tools their organization has not approved. If you do not give staff a safe tool, many will use an unsafe one with client data.

That is the setup we build at Basepoint. Our AI accountant handles bookkeeping, accounts payable, invoice chasing, bank reconciliation, and month-end close prep inside Xero, QuickBooks, and Gmail. It acts on what it is sure about and sets anything uncertain aside for a person to confirm.

Sources

B

Branson Tiong

Founder of Basepoint Labs

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