Big Four accounting firms, including Deloitte, EY, KPMG, and PwC, posted significantly more job advertisements for AI specialists than for auditors in 2025 across English-speaking countries. Roles requiring AI skills constituted almost 7% of job postings, a more than threefold increase since 2022, when ChatGPT launched. In contrast, audit jobs accounted for just under 3% of adverts, continuing a longer-term decline in their share of postings. This shift highlights the firms' strategic investment in AI to adapt to technological disruption, attract clients with AI advisory services, and integrate AI into their core operations, including identifying fraud and reducing audit costs.
The rapid adoption of AI by these firms is prompting changes in the industry, including a growing emphasis on embedding AI skills across all recruitment processes, even for foundational accounting roles. While audit departments are still growing, the majority of new roles are technology and AI-focused, reflecting a drive to build AI tools for audit processes and support the technology's use. Firms like KPMG have expressed that AI and audit are not mutually exclusive and that trustworthy AI is becoming increasingly vital to the audit process. Some job postings specifically sought individuals with both auditing and AI experience, often for product manager and developer roles focused on AI tool development.
However, this enthusiastic embrace of AI also presents challenges and risks. There's a concern that AI is reshaping audit risk faster than accounting standards can keep pace, with no clear authoritative standard on human oversight or responsibility for AI errors. Regulatory bodies like the PCAOB have been advised by the Big Four against creating premature or overly prescriptive AI standards, with firms advocating for staff guidance and continued research instead. The Big Four also face scrutiny over the reliability and cost-effectiveness of AI tools, with examples such as KPMG successfully demanding a 14% reduction in its audit fee from Grant Thornton, from $416,000 in 2024 to $357,000 in 2025, by citing AI use, which could set a precedent for other clients to demand similar price cuts. This implies an expectation of immediate cost and time savings from AI, an outcome that may be challenged by the high investment costs and current "loss leader" pricing of AI services.
