Understanding the Impact of Generative AI on Professional Judgement

This paper examines how generative artificial intelligence (Gen AI) reshapes professional judgement in accounting. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork and 22 interviews at a mid-tier UK accounting firm, we analyse everyday practices through the ICAS (2016) Professional Judgement Framework. Our findings reveal three distinct modes associated with the emerging impact of ChatGPT in accounting and auditing: Gen AI as a sparring partner, the emergence of AI-mediated feedback loops, and encroachment of Gen AI on human judgement. Drawing on Scott & Orlikowski (2025), we argue that professional judgement emerges as a sociomaterial phenomenon “in-the-making,” continually co-constituted through human–AI interactions. The study contributes to debates on automation, augmentation, and the future of expertise by foregrounding how Gen AI reconfigures judgement as a situated practice.