The Institute of Management Accountants hosted its annual conference last week and heard about the pros and cons of artificial intelligence from officials including the new leader of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board.
During one session at the conference in Tampa, PCAOB chairman Jim Logothetis discussed the need for the auditing firm regulator to be more transparent, apolitical and engaged with stakeholders, while emphasizing that professional skepticism and judgment will remain critical even as technology advances. Logothetis is a CPA as well as a CMA and worked for over 40 years at Ernst & Young.
One of the biggest takeaways from the conference, according to officials in attendance there, was that finance and accounting professionals are not just asking about how to use AI, but how to make sure it is cost-effective, practical, trustworthy and grounded in strong fundamentals.
"IMA26 made clear that the accounting and finance profession is moving from looking back at past transactions to helping shape what happens next," said IMA president and CEO Mike DePrisco in a statement. "As AI accelerates that shift, organizations need professionals who can turn data into insight, evaluate technology through a financial lens, and connect strategy to better business decisions."
In May, the IMA
"We're seeing keen interest from these organizations in developing learning programs to support getting their finance and accounting teams up to speed on topics of the day, whether it's AI and finance, advanced data analytics, whether it's getting certified in the CMA," DePrisco told Accounting Today in a recent interview.
He noted that the IMA made a modification to the exam for its Certified Management Accountant credential. "We're moving away from the essay portion of the CMA and replacing it with case-based questions," said DePrisco. "We're starting to do that in this testing window, in May and June. We're modernizing the exam and really ensuring that it's challenging candidates to tackle and demonstrate knowledge and understanding of real-life scenarios that happen in business."
He noted that other groups such as the AICPA have also moved to using case-based questions on their exams as opposed to requiring essays. "For candidates where English is not their primary language, it also sometimes creates an unintentional barrier," said DePrisco. "Most testing organizations have moved to them because they really do give you a better indication of a candidate's understanding of the content, and how they might want to apply that concept in a professional environment. That's what we're really after, making sure that individuals are equipped to apply the knowledge that they have to the work environment that they're being assigned to."
Among the trends voiced at IMA26 were:
- AI cost and ROI scrutiny are becoming a bigger concern for finance leaders, especially as companies build processes, workflows and headcount plans around tools whose long-term pricing models remain uncertain.
- The talent pipeline needs AI literacy without losing the fundamentals. Firms are focused on preparing early-career professionals to use AI effectively, but there is also concern about preserving accounting basics, critical thinking, professional skepticism and the ability to function when tools are wrong or unavailable.
- Finance teams are looking for practical AI use cases, not just hype. Attendees were focused on questions like "What are we trying to accomplish?" and "What problem does this solve?" rather than broad, theoretical applications of AI.
- Data quality is becoming a prerequisite for AI value. Finance teams are recognizing that AI tools cannot deliver reliable outputs if the underlying data is incomplete, inconsistent or poorly governed.
Titan International CFO Hernan Rizo also spoke about how finance leaders can unlock cash already inside their businesses through greater discipline around procurement, inventory, labor planning and cost management. Other speakers included Cassandra Worthy, founder and CEO of Change Enthusiasm Global, and Jeremy Cox, senior vice president, corporate controller and chief tax officer at Hewlett Packard Enterprise.
DePrisco noted that the IMA was collaborating with the CFO Alliance, which has its own track at the conference for the second year in a row, as well as FENG, the Financial Executives Networking Group.
The IMA has been expanding its outreach and services. "We introduced a number of new offerings that are now really starting to take shape in the market," said DePrisco. "We offered a corporate membership program where organizations can sign up their teams for upskilling and talent development, and we have more than 70 multinationals as well as corporations from around the world who are part of that program, everyone from the UN to J&J to groups like Mercedes-Benz and others."
The IMA has also been growing internationally. "We continue to see a very strong interest and growth in IMA and our CMA in places like India," said DePrisco. "We have over 40,000 members now in India, and we opened the new market in Japan about a year ago, and have made the CMA available in local language, in Japanese as well as English for that market."
There have been some declines in China, however. "Coming out of the pandemic, I think IMA, as well as other organizations, saw decline in overall business activity in China. It has now stabilized. China is still one of our top markets. It's in the top three. But where we've seen significant growth is in India, the Middle East and in new markets in Southeast Asia, like Vietnam and Japan. The Philippines has always been a strong market for us in Southeast Asia, but now Vietnam is coming around. We're looking at new markets all the time we can go into where there's demand."
Like other accounting organizations, the IMA has seen some declines in membership as the accounting talent shortage continues. "We have some headwinds with membership, particularly as a result of some of the declines that we saw in China," said DePrisco. That's been offset in part by increases in the Middle East and India. The U.S. has been flat or down a little bit, because we're experiencing what many organizations are experiencing in terms of an aging population in the U.S. A lot of people are retiring, and newer professionals are looking for different types of experiences in terms of how they affiliate and different membership models."
The IMA has seen growth in its recent
The IMA is currently rethinking its membership program in terms of how it can better support what younger generations are looking for from an association like the IMA, , which has about 25,000 student members. "We continue to do some really good work in universities in the U.S. as well as around the world," said DePrisco. Last November, the IMA held its 26th annual Student Leadership Conference, bringing together about 500 undergraduate accounting and finance students in Cleveland for two days of learning, leadership, career readiness, networking and connection.
"It's my favorite event, and it really gives you a lot of optimism and hope that the profession is in good hands for the future," said DePrisco.
The IMA has a
"Not only do we continue to see good growth in the U.S., but outside of the U.S., we're seeing universities who are keen to get that endorsement because it means a lot to them in terms of reputation and credibility and differentiating themselves in their markets to have that IMA endorsement," said DePrisco.
The IMA has also been updating its
"We believe it now reflects where the profession is going in the skills and capabilities and competencies that professionals need," said DePrisco.
The framework includes traditional accounting and finance core competencies, along with technical and soft skills such as AI, cybersecurity, data analytics, digital transformation, sustainability, leadership, persuasion, influence and innovation. The IMA partnered with the CFO Alliance on a research study released at the conference focusing on AI and the impact it's having on the profession and what individuals and organizations need to be thinking about for leveraging the technology.
"We had a good year overall," said DePrisco. "We're investing in new technology and new platforms to better support our members and the learning that they need, so we're feeling pretty good about where we are right now."
