EXPLORING THE IMPACT OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE ON FINANCIAL ACCOUNTING: OPPORTUNITIES, CHALLENGES, AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS

The main aim is to investigate the impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) on various aspects of disclosing financial information. The case study used a mixed methods approach, and a sample of stakeholders dealing in the Iraq Stock Exchange was taken during 2023 in Iraq. Data collection mainly included a survey conducted on 168 beneficiaries who trade stocks in the stock market, after which 22 clients were selected for personal interviews based on their voluntary willingness to participate in individual interviews. The results revealed beneficiaries prefer to use Artificial Intelligence to get new ideas for tasks or to help them with "plans" for their projects. The results also revealed that artificial intelligence applications raise concerns about ethics and reliability in their use to disclose financial information and their exploitation by management to obtain financial funding against beneficiaries' will. Finally, the results revealed that most current educational curricula differ from technological developments. Based on the participant's responses about receiving training in artificial intelligence, their concerns were related to the need for appropriate education to deal with artificial intelligence tools.