Accountants: AI is coming for your low-value work!

If you’re an accountant, AI will make information easier to process. Your judgement is going to become more valuable. That was one of the ideas that stayed with me after the #AIM2026 conference withThe Gap HQ and Mark Jenkins.

For accounting firms, AI and automation is already changing how your work gets done. Routine tasks are becoming faster. Reports are easier to produce. Data is easier to process. Clients can access more information themselves.

That creates an opportunity. But I don’t think the opportunity is simply to do the same work faster.

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Your clients already have information.

Most business owners are not short of reports. They can see revenue, profit, cash, debtors and margins. The issue is often not access to information.

It is understanding:

what matters
what to ignore
what decision needs to be made
what action should happen next

That is where your judgement becomes valuable. If gross profit falls, the number itself is only the start. Is it pricing? Labour productivity? Supplier costs? Poor quoting? Discounting? Rework? Customer mix?

The value is not just showing the client what changed. The value is helping them understand why it changed and what they should do next.

You already have a strong position.

This is why I think accounting firms have a real opportunity. You already have three things many advisers would love to have.

Trust. You may have worked with the client for years.
The numbers. You can often see issues developing before the owner does.
Business history. You know what the business has been through, where it has grown and where it has struggled.

That is a strong position to build from.

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The challenge is not always demand.

From talking with accountants at AIM, I don’t think the issue is that clients do not want more support. The challenge is often more practical from the accountants I spoke to.

Where do we find the time?
What do we actually offer?
Who in the firm can deliver it?
How do we make advisory more structured and repeatable?
How do we stop it depending on one partner?

Those are very different questions from simply asking which new software the firm should buy.

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Technology can create capacity. It does not create capability.

AI can process information, it can identify trends, it can save time and that matters. But it does not automatically make someone better at having a commercial conversation with a client. That requires judgement. Human judgement.

Advisory capability still requires people who can ask good questions, challenge assumptions, understand the wider business and help turn a discussion into action. But that capability has to be developed.

The value moves before the decision.

Traditionally, much of accounting has focused on what has already happened. The month has closed, the year has finished, the transaction has happened. The numbers are then reported and explained and there will always be value in you doing that. But I think the bigger opportunity is to be involved before the important decision is made.

Before the client hires more people, opens another location, takes on more debt, buys another business, invests in equipment, changes pricing or grows beyond the capability of the current team. That is where judgement can have a much bigger impact.

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Your clients want more than information.

Over 15+ years working with owner-led businesses as an independent advisor, one thing has become very clear. Clients rarely want information for the sake of information. They want something to change.

Clients want better profitability. Stronger cash flow. Better people. More control. Less dependence on themselves. More confidence about where the business is heading.

Information helps, but information on its own does not create transformation. Someone still needs to help turn that information into a decision, then turn the decision into action, then review whether the action worked.

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What does your firm want to be known for?

I think this is one of the bigger strategic questions facing accounting firms.

As routine work becomes easier to automate, where do you want the value of your firm to sit?

In processing?
In compliance?
In reporting?

Or in helping clients make better decisions?

The firms that do well will probably not just be the ones that adopt the most technology. They will be the ones that use technology to create capacity, then use that capacity to become more valuable strategic partners. The conversation starts to move from: here are your numbers to ...

Here is what we are seeing. Here is what we think it means. Here are the questions you should be asking. What are we going to do about it?

That is a very different relationship, and potentially a much more valuable one.

The firms that do well will probably not just be the ones that adopt the most technology. They'll be the ones that use tech to create capacity, then use that capacity to become more valuable strategic partners.

The opportunity.

AI will make information easier to access and process. It already is and will do even more of the processing work as Kayur Patel discussed. I think judgement, commercial thinking and the ability to help clients act on that information will become more valuable.

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The question for accounting firms is whether they are building that capability now.

I’d be interested to hear what others think.

How do you see AI and automation changing the value your firm provides over the next 5 years?

And for those who were at AIM2026, did I read the room right?

I’m looking at this from the outside as a business advisor who works with a lot of accountants.

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Am I right, or am I missing something?

Let me know!

PlanA. Better data. Better decisions. Better profitability.

Accountants: AI is coming for your low-value work!