KPMG Rolls Out AI-Driven Tax Doc Review With IBM Watson

KPMG International has announced a range of AI-driven doc review services under an expanded strategic alliance with IBM Watson’s AI technology.

The Big Four firm said in a statement that ‘solutions utilising Watson now available include the KPMG Contract Abstraction Tool for IFRS 16 lease accounting compliance and KPMG Research Tax Credit Services with Watson’.

The move signals that now all members of the Big Four have made public announcements on their use of AI for contract and document review.

Previous examples covered by Artificial Lawyer can be seen here in relation to EY, PwC, and Deloitte. In some cases the focus has been on tax and accounting doc review, in others it has moved into the risk, compliance and legal space.

However, what is certain now is that the Big Four, as a powerful and influential global group, have now publicly embraced AI technology to automate many of the process tasks they conduct for clients.

Undoubtedly this will not be lost on the corporates they advise and in turn will ramp up pressure on law firms, and smaller accountants, to provide at least an equivalent level of automation.

Steve Hill, Global Head of Innovation and a partner with KPMG in the US, explained: ‘Pervasive digitization and technological disruption is changing the business landscape, and the way humans work with technology.’

‘Our workforce offerings, such as the KPMG Contract Abstraction Tool are collaborative tools, designed to equip businesses with enhanced capabilities enabled by machine learning to help improve efficiency and decision making,’ he added.

Meanwhile, Beth Smith, General Manager, IBM Watson Data & AI, added: ‘The introduction of these Watson-enabled solutions with KPMG is key to bringing the benefits of AI to professionals across the business.’

KPMG also has kindly set out exactly what some of the new AI tools, driven by IBM, will do:

– KPMG Contract Abstraction Tool

‘The KPMG Contract Abstraction Tool is a good example of how AI can enhance human cognition with capabilities that help inform decision-making and provide operational efficiencies for businesses.

Lease accounting has always been a time-consuming task and even more rigorous today with the IFRS 16 standard for recognizing, measuring, presenting and disclosing lease contracts.

To simplify the management and tracking of lease contracts for compliance with IFRS 16, the KPMG Lighthouse Center of Excellence for Data & Analytics and Intelligent Automation team in Germany and IBM Germany developed the tool which automates the extraction of lease contract data to reduce preparation time and improve accuracy of lease accounting.

Machine learning and content mining combine statistical search functionality with semantic analysis methods, allowing various data sources and types to be integrated and analyzed. The solution, which applies IBM Watson Explorer, a cognitive exploration and content analysis platform, identifies trends, patterns, anomalies and relationships between the data.’

– KPMG Research Tax Credit Services with Watson (US tax credit subsidy for increasing research activities)

‘Companies that are eligible to claim the US income tax credit subsidy for increasing research activities may realize sizeable benefits including reduced income taxes, enhanced cash flow, increased financial statement earnings and earnings per share.

KPMG’s tax cognitive platform with Watson includes the ability to examine relevant documents to help obtain evidence identifying research projects eligible for credit subsidies and provide higher-quality documentation to help retain the credit subsidy upon a US Internal Revenue Audit (IRS) audit.

Further, automated document examination mitigates business disruption so key business professionals engaged in research activities can stay focused on more strategic, value added activities rather than spending large amounts of time to facilitate tax compliance.’