It feels like we’re in the middle of an AI revolution. Every conference agenda has multiple AI sessions. Vendors are announcing new AI features almost weekly. LinkedIn is full of posts from firms experimenting with prompts, automation and agents.
From the outside, it looks like accounting is moving fast. But when I talk to firms, the reality often feels very different.
Partners are talking about AI but aren’t quite sure where to start. Innovation committees are evaluating tools but struggling to move from discussion to action. Staff are curious, and in many cases already experimenting, even if they aren’t officially “allowed.”
So we’re in this strange place where AI is everywhere in the conversation, but adoption inside firms still feels slow. I don’t actually think accountants are ignoring AI. The profession is behaving exactly the way it always has when new technology arrives.
Accountants Are Usually Late to the Party
Historically, accountants haven’t been at the front of technology adoption curves. They tend to move once tools are proven, stable and compliant.
We saw this with digital workpapers, cloud accounting, client portals and e-signatures. In each case, the technology was widely used in other industries long before it became standard practice inside firms.
There are good reasons for that. Accountants operate in an environment defined by regulation, confidentiality and professional liability. The cost of getting technology wrong can be much higher for a firm than it is for many other businesses. So the profession tends to watch carefully before jumping in.
AI is following that same pattern, but this time the speed is very different. AI appears to be evolving monthly or weekly. And clients are already experimenting with it in their own businesses.
That creates a tension we have to address: The instinct to wait for certainty in a world that is moving very quickly.
The Innovation Traffic Jam
Even when firm leadership agrees AI is important, adoption often stalls once the conversation moves from strategy to execution. Inside many firms, AI initiatives run into what I think of as an innovation traffic jam.
Leadership says the firm should explore AI. IT wants to evaluate security and compliance risks. Innovation committees start reviewing vendors. Meanwhile, the people who are most curious about the technology — the staff — aren’t always sure if and how they’re allowed to use it.
So they do what curious professionals always do. They try it anyway. They test prompts. Draft emails. Summarize documents. Explore what the tools can do. But because that experimentation is happening informally, the firm doesn’t really benefit from it. The learning stays isolated instead of becoming part of how the team works.
Tools Aren’t the Real Problem
At the same time firms are trying to figure out AI, they’re also dealing with an overwhelming number of options that are coming at them quickly. For firm leaders trying to make responsible technology decisions, this can create decision paralysis. So many firms default to waiting. But the irony is that the most important learning about AI doesn’t usually come from purchasing a new platform. It comes from experimenting.
When firms begin discussing AI, they usually start with what tools they should buy. But it’s probably the wrong place to start because the real shift with AI is behavioral.
Most people still treat AI like Google. They ask a question, read the answer and stop. But AI works much better as a conversation partner.
You provide context
You refine the question
You challenge the output
In many ways, it works more like interacting with a junior team member than using a search engine. This is where the idea of AIQ, your Artificial Intelligence Quotient, becomes important. It’s your ability to think with AI rather than simply using it as a quick-answer tool. The real benefit of AI is having your people learn how to work alongside it.
The Firms Making Progress
The firms experimenting with AI are permitting their teams to try things, share with one another and explore where AI helps and where it doesn’t. The focus is on building familiarity with AI.
Small discoveries start to accumulate. Someone finds a better way to draft client communications. Someone else uses AI to summarize research or meeting notes. Over time, those experiments begin to change how work gets done.
Interestingly, smaller firms sometimes move faster here. With fewer layers of approval, new ideas can spread quickly across a team. But firms of any size can create the same momentum by simply making space to learn.
Where the Value Shifts
Our business model has been built around time. Hours worked. Time sheets. Billable time. But what happens when work that once took hours can be completed in minutes?
The connection between time and value becomes harder to justify. That’s why value-based pricing and subscriptions are getting more attention. As AI handles more of the grunt work, the value clients place on interpretation, insight and guidance increases. AI is changing where an accountant’s value sits.
We need to change the conversation around AI away from what might be lost to what we gain. Accountants have always spent enormous amounts of time collecting data, organizing it and preparing reports. AI may finally give you time to think. That’s not something we’ve had a lot of time for. In that sense, AI will amplify what accountants can do for their clients.
But the real question is whether the profession is ready to move from talking about AI… to learning how to work with it. It’s time to increase adoption and change the value discussion.
