Deloitte Malta director John Debattista has shone a light on how much AI has revamped the accounting profession within just a few years.

And in a powerful LinkedIn post predicting the future of the profession, Mr Debattista said that new accountants should be trained to become “AI architects rather than AI reviewers”.

“Newly graduated accountants are stepping into a profession that’s already been rewritten,” he said.

“When I graduated in 2005, my early years were spent vouching invoices, summarising documents and preparing reconciliations. I hated it but it taught judgement, I started building my experience.”

With much of that work now automated, he said that many new graduates are now being trained for a new kind of low-value role, that is reviewing AI output.

However, Mr Debattista said that this isn’t where real value exists and predicted that the role will eventually disappear too.

“Value won’t come from validating what AI produces, but from shaping how it thinks – challenging its decisions, engineering smarter prompts, embedding judgement into models, partnering in AI design and not policing it,” he said.

“The professionals who will win won’t be better AI reviewers. They’ll be AI architects.”

Several accountants and audit professionals have already spoken out about how automation has already changed the industry.

Grant Thornton’s Wayne Pisani told MaltaCEOs that AI allows their clients to benefit from faster insights, greater accuracy and more strategic outcomes.

Christian Gravina of GCS Malta said that automated workflows have made routine processes faster, reduced errors, and freed staff to handle exceptions and enrich client service.