DataSnipper CEO Vidya Peters says audit faces a scarcity crisis, not AI job loss

Peters has spent two years arguing that audit faces a crisis of scarcity, but the louder Silicon Valley story has been the opposite one. Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman predicted in February that most tasks involving sitting down at a computer, accounting among them, will be fully automated within a year to 18 months. Peters' reply is that this headline gets the profession wrong, and that the people making such predictions are speaking from their own vested interest.

The numbers she points to come from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. Schools awarded 55,152 accounting bachelor's and master's degrees in the 2023-24 academic year, down 6.6%, though enrollment in accounting programs rose 12.4% in spring 2025, the highest since 2020. Demand keeps climbing meanwhile, with the BLS projecting about 115,300 openings every year through 2035, mostly to replace workers who retire or leave.

DataSnipper's own research cuts the other way. Trust in AI among audit and finance professionals fell to 55% in 2026 from 78% in 2025, and only 13% of organizations have integrated it into real workflows. Peters' answer is traceability, tying every AI output back to a source document so it can be checked. Whether that closes the gap may hinge on whether ordinary auditors, not just specialists, take on the reviewing role she describes.