AI in Accounting: How Managing Partners Are Leading the Charge (or Holding the Line)
- Marc T Staut, Shareholder
- Sep 15
- 3 min read
Artificial intelligence isn’t a futuristic concept for accounting firms. It’s here, it’s practical and it’s already reshaping the way many of us work. The real question is how you choose to engage with it. Some firm leaders are experimenting aggressively, while others are standing back and observing. Either way, the pace of change is hard to ignore.
From strategic promise to tactical reality
Right now, most firms are still in the tactical phase with AI. The most common use case?
Meeting notes.
AI applications are changing how we capture conversations. It’s logging to-dos, surfacing unresolved questions and producing summaries that are often more accurate and useful than what we get from a human note-taker. If your firm is already running on Microsoft Teams, Copilot is becoming the default solution because it integrates seamlessly into an environment you’re already using.
Other tactical applications gaining traction include:
Internal knowledge access. Quickly pulling answers from past workpapers, policies or templates
Tax preparation assistance. Guiding staff through complex steps or identifying relevant resources faster
Client FAQs. Building prompt libraries so you don’t reinvent the wheel when clients ask common questions
Data analysis and summaries. Dropping in financial statements or technical documents and generating an executive-ready summary (only for tools explicitly designed for handling sensitive data—not general-purpose tools)
These use cases might feel small, but the time saved adds up. When firms capture these wins and share them in a Teams channel or through an AI steering committee, they spread quickly.
A leadership mindset shift
If you’re leading a firm, the conversation around AI adoption can feel daunting. But the mindset that makes the difference is one of augmentation rather than replacement.
The real opportunity isn’t in reducing headcount. It’s in giving your people the tools to spend less time on repetitive, administrative work and more time on strategic, high-value guidance. Done right, AI enhances accuracy, frees up capacity and makes room for deeper forecasting and client advisory work. That’s a win for your firm and your clients.
A simple framework for evaluating AI tools
With new AI tools launching weekly, it’s easy to get overwhelmed. Instead of chasing every shiny new solution, take a step back and evaluate tools through a firm-wide lens.
Average hourly rate × Time saved × Number of people saving that time = Potential value
That’s it. You don’t need a 40-page ROI analysis. If a tool pays for itself in the next year by freeing up capacity, it’s worth considering. You may end up with a handful of different AI tools serving various purposes, and that’s okay. What matters is whether they generate measurable value and fit into your existing workflows.
Navigating the wild west of AI
Let’s be honest: this is still the wild west. Vendors haven’t consolidated, tools aren’t fully mature and locking yourself into one platform right now probably isn’t wise. The smarter play is to test short-term solutions, capture immediate value and build a foundation of internal knowledge.
We’ll see more integrations into everyday software as vendors roll out updates. By year-end, many firms will find that AI has quietly integrated itself into workflows, making tasks such as tax research, document review and analysis faster and easier.
The firms that win with AI will be the ones that create structure around experimentation, evaluate tools against real business value and adopt a mindset of augmentation over replacement.
If you’re not already experimenting with AI in at least one area of your firm, now is the time to start. The pace of change isn’t slowing down, and the sooner you capture real-world learnings, the better positioned you’ll be to lead your people and your clients through this next wave of transformation.
Do you want to connect with other Managing Partners in the accounting profession to improve performance and grow your firm?
The Boomer Managing Partner Circle is a peer group of Managing Partners from successful and growing firms. Apply now to gain a network of trusted peers to call on as you shape your firm for the future.
Marc Staut is the Chief Innovation and Technology Officer at Boomer Consulting, Inc., where he helps CPA firms build people-first technology strategies that fuel firm-wide innovation. Known for his widely followed “What’s in Your Bag?” series and a background that spans just about every role in an IT department, Marc brings empathy, humor and deep tech insight wherever he goes, from client engagements to national conferences.
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