CFO Series: AI and Machine Learning: Practical Applications

Overview

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) are being deployed in organizations large and small at a rapidly increasing rate. Your organization is likely testing, deploying, and perhaps refining AI-powered applications across a variety of departments and business functions. Why should this matter to accounting, internal audit, finance and cyber professionals? Should our teams be testing and deploying also? How and why AI can be used in accounting and audit? During this interactive session we will demonstrate and describe the differences between chat-based AI search tools and more robust AI-powered applications - e.g., an app to help prioritize and dispatch IT help desk tickets. The session will include example policies for responsible and ethical AI, and resources to help curious professionals learn more about these subjects. These technologies are powerful and quite capable, but they are not without risk. After all, with great power comes great responsibility. These technologies can also be misused (accidentally or intentionally) to destroy value instead of creating it.

We also discuss which is the greater risk; a) not using these new technologies, or b) misusing these new technologies. Leading organizations have been using AI and ML. Successful leaders must be aware of the pros and cons and how to properly utilize these tools.

Highlights

The major topics that will be covered in this course include:

Analyzing AI and ML and describe potential finance-related applications for both.
The growth of AI.
Practical applications and risks for AI and ML, specifically for accounting and finance.
Bookmark and share examples of ethical policies to help mitigate these risks.
Prompt engineering tips to yield desired responses from Generative AI tools like Chat GPT, Gemini, Perplexity AI, and Microsoft Copilot.

Prerequisites

None, preferably at least six (6) months of professional financial statement analysis experience.

Designed For

Any professional or leader who wants to remain current with new and evolving technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI) and ML, and better understand how impactful they are, both today and in the future.

Objectives

After attending this presentation, you will be able to...

Recognize and accept that AI and ML are important new technologies that will impact almost every organization.
Identify the risks, advantages, and the issues of deploying AI and ML.
Better comprehend how to optimize the effectiveness of AI and ML.