AI is converging with new energy technologies at an extraordinary speed. For chartered accountants, the opportunity is not simply to automate existing work, but to strengthen judgment, reshape skills, and help organizations navigate a less predictable world.
Insight Article By Steve Brifu Sarkodie | Technology, Energy & the Profession | 2026
The Fifth Industrial Revolution will be powered by two forces working together: increasingly autonomous artificial intelligence and the electricity infrastructure required to sustain it. The session’s message to finance professionals was direct: engage now, remain the human in the loop, and prepare to make better decisions faster.
In a CAW Network USA Beyond Accounting webinar hosted by David Powell, Gerard Reid outlined the technologies and economic shifts driving the coming revolution. Reid was joined for the panel discussion by Mark Coles, a chartered accountant and investment and operating executive with considerable experience across energy and infrastructure.
Their discussion connected AI, solar, batteries, semiconductors and robotics with the future of work, capital, and professional education. Although the scale of change is uncertain, the speakers agreed that accountants cannot treat AI as a narrow software upgrade. It is changing the environment in which organizations invest, operate, and make decisions.
A revolution built on intelligence and electricity
Reid described the Industrial Revolution as the combination of an energy transition and a wave of innovation. In his account, the Fifth Industrial Revolution is centered on AI, but AI depends on electricity. As digital systems become more capable and widespread, reliable power becomes even more fundamental to economic activity.
The enabling technologies extend well beyond large language models. Reid identified generative AI, machine learning, reinforcement learning, optimization, and agentic AI, as well as solar power, batteries, power semiconductors, and robotics. Together, these technologies can observe, predict, optimize, and, in some settings, act with growing autonomy.
What distinguishes this revolution is its pace. Reid contrasted earlier industrial transitions, which unfolded over decades, with an AI shift he expects to develop within roughly a decade. That compression makes preparation difficult: organizations must make long-term infrastructure and talent decisions while the capabilities available to them are changing rapidly.
Below is what Reid shared in that context:
Accounting work will change radically
The speakers saw finance as especially exposed to change because so much of its work involves collecting data, building models, and applying repeatable processes. Reid described using AI to complete a client presentation in 45 minutes that would previously have required about 8 hours of team effort and reported a 35% increase in productivity across his corporate finance business after changing how the organization worked.
Below is what Reid shared from that perspective:
Coles offered a similar view on investment and power generation. Financial models that once absorbed days of analyst time can now be developed much more quickly when AI is given the right context. Coles went on to say that the initial model is “still not great, but it’s pretty good,” and added that, with context, it can become investment-grade quickly. This shifts professional effort from producing the first draft to interrogating assumptions, testing conclusions, and shaping strategy.
Coles describes his experience in power generation, including gas, wind, solar, and batteries below:
The human in the loop becomes more important
Greater automation does not remove the need for accountants. It raises the value of people who can direct the tools, understand context, and judge whether an answer is credible. Coles called this being the “human in the loop”: checking what AI produces, defining strategy, and taking responsibility for the decisions that follow.
That responsibility becomes harder for professionals who lack experience. Reid noted that senior practitioners can often recognize when an answer is sound or nonsensical because they have accumulated context. Someone at the beginning of a career may be more inclined to accept an AI-generated answer without understanding where its facts came from.
The panel, therefore, placed critical thinking at the center of professional value. AI can deliver more information and accelerate analysis, but that can create more, not less, demand for judgment. Accountants will need to question sources, challenge outputs, connect analysis to real-world consequences, and help others make sound decisions in a nonlinear, difficult-to-predict environment.
Education must develop thinkers, not just technicians
The traditional education model still matters, but the speakers argued that it must place greater weight on critical thinking, creativity, and the ability to use intelligent tools effectively. Coles suggested that liberal arts may become more important because professionals will need to reason, communicate, and frame strategy rather than simply execute technical routines.
Reid reinforced the case for learning through experimentation. He pointed to games such as chess, cards, and mind mapping as ways to exercise judgment and creativity, and recommended organization-wide hackathons in which people at every level work together on a problem using AI. The goal is to make exploration practical, open, and inclusive rather than leaving adoption to a specialist team.
The two speakers share these thoughts here:
Could AI infrastructure move into space or underwater?
The panel also considered whether future data centers could be located in space or underwater. Gerard Reid argued that space-based facilities could benefit from near-continuous solar power, although physical limitations remain. He also noted that some data centers already use immersion cooling, surrounding equipment with specialized fluids to manage heat. Mark Coles viewed space as the more likely option, citing its energy potential and pointing to advances such as Starlink, while acknowledging that the concept has yet to be proven. Both perspectives highlight how rising demand for AI is prompting more unconventional thinking about the energy and cooling infrastructure needed to support it.
Panelists share their thoughts on this below:
AI should strengthen, not replace critical thinking
The panel rejected the idea that using AI must weaken critical thinking. Mark Coles said the technology has increased the amount of critical thinking he engages in because it provides more information for him to review, question, and use in making strategic decisions. Gerard Reid agreed that experienced professionals can use AI to obtain information more quickly while drawing on their expertise to assess the credibility of the output. However, he warned that younger or less experienced users may lack the context needed to challenge inaccurate answers and may accept AI-generated information too readily. The discussion emphasized that AI’s value depends on maintaining human judgment, questioning sources, and taking responsibility for decisions.
Below is what both Coles and Reid shared on this topic:
The practical starting point is to embrace AI with discipline: use it, test it, and learn what it can and cannot do. Organizations should create room for experimentation while keeping knowledgeable people accountable for outputs. The profession’s advantage will come from combining technological fluency with skepticism, ethics, context, and strategic judgment. In the Fifth Industrial Revolution, those human capabilities are not displaced; they become the basis of trust, especially for critical thinkers.
The whole event can be viewed below: