👉 Background: PwC Australia is one of the Big Four professional services firms. They offer services for everything tax, audit, consulting, law and even digital strategies. And, PwC has been in the news a lot of the past 12 months thanks to its tax controversies.

👉 What happened: Now, PwC announced its brand new virtual assistant called Chat PwC. It will help PwC's 8000+ employees analyse financial statements, summarise documents, and even interpret legislation.

👉 What else: PwC isn't the first professional services firm to roll out a shiny AI tool:

• KPMG has a tax-bot
• Deloitte has a bot that can create Powerpoint presentations and other daily tasks
• EY has a chatbot that can write code and answer payroll questions

But with AI supposedly planning to do a lot of the legwork, there are big questions about the future of these professions.

What's the key learning?

💡The introduction of AI tools into workplaces is beginning to shake up the very nature of white-collar work.

💡In the past, white-collar workers would need to do the grunt work to deliver results for their clients (think: market research, Powerpoint presentations). But, the many new AI tools, which can provide many of these capabilities, are causing the role of professional services firms to shift.

💡A report from McKinsey suggests that more than 27% of consulting tasks could be eliminated by AI. So, while these professional services firms are praising AI today, it could just be these tools that upend their businesses in the future.

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