The ATO has revealed its attitude to the use of artificial intelligence (AI) by SMSF advisers, accountants and trustees, confirming a degree of conventional human involvement is still required in certain circumstances.
“We’re very aware people are thinking about how to use AI to make [their] jobs easier and there’s a lot of potential for that. I would say one of the things in our minds is [there is a point] where human judgment is still really critical to ensure the decisions you’re making, particularly in audits [and] in financial advice, [are sound]. You can’t always trust those AI tools [to cover this yet],” ATO superannuation and employer obligations deputy commissioner Emma Rosenzweig told delegates at the recently held SMSF Association National Conference 2025 in Melbourne.
Further, Rosenzweig revealed a recent Administrative Appeals Tribunal case saw a defendant use AI in the preparation of their submission that demonstrated the limitations the use of this type of technology can have.
“[The submission included] references to things that didn’t exist and there was some commentary from the member there about the fact that [the use of AI] wasn’t appropriate and was actually generating work for the tribunal and its staff to verify things,” she said.
“[So that’s] a good example of where [the defendant] thought I’ll stick it into ChatGPT and see if it will help, but actually [found out] you can’t always trust some of those [tools].”
She also took the opportunity to indicate how the ATO is approaching the use of AI with regard to its own operations.
“We’ve been using tools that might be considered AI for some time now to help us with a whole range of [activities],” she said.
“I think we’re being very thoughtful about how and when we might use [those types of] tools ourselves.”
