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NEW GUIDE

Before you deploy: The hidden risks of AI in accounting

86% of UK mid-tier firms say their technology strategy includes AI however only 35% of businesses using AI have written a governance policy. Deployment has run ahead of governance.

The guide answers 9 questions for large accounting firms including:

    • How and where is AI currently entering your firm?
    • Is your data architecture ready for AI?
    • Does your professional indemnity insurance cover AI?
    • There's no UK AI Act. So what rules already apply?

Plus, access a 14 question checklist to help prepare and safeguard your firm for AI deployment.

Nine questions most firms can't yet answer

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AI is already inside your firm, whether or not it went through procurement. It gets in through four separate routes, and only one of them involves a business case anyone signed off. Underneath the productivity story sits one problem: nobody in the firm can actually account for where AI touches client data.

Client records are split across several systems that don't agree with each other. "Human oversight" has no shared definition, so nobody can say what's actually being checked. And the professional indemnity policy is silent on AI, not because it's covered, but because nobody's asked.

Built from interviews with technology and risk specialists at HLB International, ACCA and Apteus Group, and tested against ICAEW, FRC, ICO, Lloyd's Market Association and EU AI Act data, this guide closes with a 14-question checklist to score your own firm's AI readiness.

60%
 
of European organisations cannot say how quickly they could halt a compromised AI system
ISACA, February 2026. n=681, Europe.
66%
 
of AI vendors name data availability and quality as the leading obstacle to AI adoption
Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance, 628 organisations.
#1
 
Professional indemnity is the insurance line underwriters expect AI to hit first
Lloyd’s Market Association, January 2026. 144 managing agents, 94% underwriters.

To get there, it answers nine questions, which are:

1. How is AI coming into your firm?
2. Is your data ready for AI?
3. Can you trust the answer AI gives you?
4. What does "human oversight" actually mean?
5. Does your professional indemnity insurance cover AI?
6. There's no UK AI Act.
So what rules already apply?
7. What could this cost your firm?
8. What does an AI-ready firm actually look like?
9. How ready is your firm?
Contributors
John Toon

Head of Technology, HLB International 

Alistair Brisbourne

Head of Technology Research, ACCA

Evan Jones

Head of Integration and Operational Excellence, Apteus Group

George Llewellyn

Head of Technology, Apteus Group

Don't find out the hard way

Your insurer is already forming a view of how your firm governs AI. Your clients will, too.

Get the full guide and the 14-question readiness checklist.