Artificial Intelligence in Accounting for Sustainable Business: An Empirical Study of Professional Acceptance and Adoption Challenges

Abstract

Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly influencing accounting through automation, analytics, financial reporting and decision support. This study examines professional acceptance of AI in accounting, its perceived contribution to sustainable business, major adoption challenges, and future expectations concerning responsible AI. Primary data were collected through a structured questionnaire from 150 respondents representing accounting, auditing, taxation, finance, academia and business. Frequency, percentage, mean score, ranking and selected chi-square tests were used. The results show that 70.7 per cent of respondents currently use AI-enabled accounting or financial tools. The strongest agreement was for including AI-related skills in accounting education (mean 4.03), followed by intention to increase AI use in the future (3.77). AI was also viewed positively for improving financial reporting and analysis (3.67). High implementation cost (3.65) and shortage of skilled employees (3.62) emerged as important challenges. Profession was significantly associated with current AI-tool use (χ²=17.43, p=.008). The study concludes that sustainable AI adoption in accounting requires education, continuous professional training, organisational investment, responsible-use guidelines and human oversight. Initial reliability diagnostics of the broad item groupings were weak; therefore, the study interprets the items individually rather than claiming validated composite scales.