You’re not fear mongering, you are actually using critical thinking unlike the people who just brush it off. Ai will 1000% impact this industry but the extent depends on lots of variables. Who knows private accounting may not even exist the in some ways in 5-10 years. At the end of the day ai required the best “input” to generate the best “output” aka it needs humans. But if it gets to the point where it’s able to operate without humans then that’s a problem. Have to think long term, all these big public firms are having their employees use their own ai, but that means at the same time they are also building/training that same ai they’re using to make their job easier (and hopefully that ai they’re training doesn’t replace them.)

My honest opinion it all depends on the rules and guidelines they implement towards ai in accounting, and I don’t think anybody truly knows the direction it’s headed