From Traditional Accounting to Sustainable Digital Accounting: The Role of Artificial Intelligence

The digitalization and sustainability trends are triggering changes in the accounting industry. Manual accounting methods tend to fail to scale in terms of complexity. The increasing focus on sustainability has further highlighted traditional accounting methods’ shortcomings in effectively measuring and reporting environmental, social, and governance (ESG) concerns. However, many AI accounting solutions are available; the integration of AI into most of the accounting systems is difficult. Concerns about data security, ethics, the usability of technology, and implementation costs pose significant obstacles. This paper seeks to address the deficiency of sustainable accounting and the adoption of AI by offering methods of achieving a shift towards sustainable digital accounting and presenting solutions to the problem by advising corporations and the government on the relationship between technology and sustainable policies. While AI has been applied in various fields, its integration into accounting, especially in the context of sustainability, remains an emerging area of research. Given the increasing emphasis on sustainability in corporate reporting and operations, understanding how AI can contribute to this shift is essential. Still, there are aspects AI integration such as ethical, technological, and regulatory compliance which remain to be understood. In this article, the authors are going to make use of a quantitative method based on data gathered from Web of Science to study AI and sustainable digital accounting. Using this approach, the study provides a fresh, data-driven perspective on the trends and challenges surrounding AI integration in accounting systems. The primary research question is: How can AI be utilized to transform sustainable accounting practices? Other objectives concern the evaluation of AI integration regarding the effectiveness and sustainability of the accounting practices and the concerns around adoption of AI. The findings of the study highlight that AI achieves greater accuracy, accountability as well as productivity in accounting procedures and simultaneously aids sustainable practices. These findings are relevant to organizations that are looking to implement AI into their accounting functions and to those responsible for policy formulated aimed at promoting sustainable initiatives in the corporate sector.