How would accounting look like, in the age of AI? Will accountants be relevant?

What are the latest trends in technology which will affect how entrepreneurs interact with technology?

Can technology help accountants and entrepreneurs develop a human connection?

The Context and Challenge in Brief

This project was my graduation thesis as part of my Master's Degree in Strategic Product Design at TU Delft. It was done at Exact Software, a Dutch company providing book-keeping software for more than 400,000 SMEs across the Netherlands. The project ran from April 2017 to November 2017.

Exact Software was looking to explore new technologies with a view towards the future. With new advances in machine learning, voice user interfaces, and natural language processing, how could accountants evolve? How would entrepreneurs of tomorrow deal with the barrage of information fostered by humans being connected through billions of handheld devices?

What were the relevant tools and interactions for the future, and which were not relevant?

I had to explore all these areas, and based on my findings, design a concept for a product which would fit the world of 2025.

The Design and Research Approach

I used the method called Vision in Product Design which was developed at TU Delft. Basically, it works like this:

• The designer collects information from diverse sources and derives 'Context Factors' from the data. These context factors are value free descriptions of the world and serve as the starting points for product design
• The context factors are then used to articulate a vision for the future. The vision statement is used to express what the designer wants to put into the future context
• The designer then articulates the product and interaction qualities
• Finally, based on the vision and the qualities the concept is developed. This concept should naturally fit the future context

Collecting and Analyzing the Context Factors

This was the most time consuming and critical part of the project - taking up more than 80% of the time. But this was important to make sure the concept had a solid foundation. I collected context factors from various sources: