CHARTS & GRAPHS

Accountants Race to Tame AI before AI Outruns the Practice

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Only 1 in 5 firms has an AI strategy, leaving most firms with varying degrees of chaos.

Barely three years since ChatGPT launched, 98% of accountants are using AI regularly. 88% use it in client service.

By CPA Trendlines Research

With artificial intelligence now firmly embedded in the daily life of tax and accounting firms, the profession’s next test is whether practitioners can learn to run AI before AI outruns the practice.

A new crop of research studies and benchmarking surveys suggests firms have yet to fully govern the tools, price the work, train the staff and protect client trust under AI regimes. Reports from the AICPA, Karbon, CPA.com, Blue J, Intuit Firm of the Future, KPMG, Personiv, the ACCA, Rightworks, Business.com and Citrin Cooperman show AI adoption is no longer in doubt. Coping with it is.

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Karbon says 98% of accounting professionals use AI, up 15 percentage points from last year, with 55% using it several times a day and 74% using it daily or more often.

Intuit says 88% of accounting professionals used AI for at least one client service in the last 12 months, and 86% used AI for at least one firm operation. Some 46% of firms are investing in AI training, 21% have an AI policy, and 21% have an AI strategy. Intuit says 30% describe AI as embedded by default in daily work, while 54% use it only when it seems useful.

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With $1.8 Billion Deal, Eide Bailly Set for Explosive Growth

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Reverence Capital turns a regional powerhouse into a national growth engine.

Eide Bailly MP/CEO Jeremy Hauk: Pre-building a private equity platform in plain sight.

By CPA Trendlines Research

Eide Bailly doubled billings in six years, to $840 million. They plan to do it again, but in half the time.

Eide Bailly didn’t need private equity to roll up more than a dozen local CPA firms in the last two years.

But the Reverence Capital Partners takeover, which values Eide Bailly at about $1.8 billion, means the Fargo, N.D., CPA firm can shift into hyperdrive and take a shot at competing on a national stage. With about $840 million in billings, up from $780 million a year before, the deal prices Eide Bailly at about 2.1 times revenue.

MORE Private Equity | What $1 Billion Buys in Today’s CPA Market

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Less than two weeks before Eide Bailly’s deal, Chicago-based Crowe agreed to sell to KKR, famous for leveraged buyouts, for nearly $3 billion, at 2.2 times revenue.

The two deals mean that just over half of the top 30 firms are muscling up for expansion with outside capital. Only five of the firms between No. 6 Baker Tilly and No. 26 Sikich are left as independents. In the top 50, about half the firms are taking outside capital. At 100, it’s 29 firms. Overall, the CPA PE Deal Trackertm from CPA Trendlines Research counts more than 500 deals, most of them in the last three years.

In the top tiers of the accounting profession, the market has split into three clear, distinct philosophies: the PE-backed consolidators (like EisnerAmper or Baker Tilly), the ESOP pioneers (led by BDO), and the traditional independence holdouts (Forvis Mazars, CLA, Plante Moran, and Withum), who view partner-ownership as a major asset for long-term talent retention.

 

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CPA PE Deal Tracker™: What $1 Billion Buys in Today’s CPA Business

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A Tale of Two Theses: Two of the world’s biggest investors place opposing bets. 

KKR takes Crowe. Baker Tilly lands Anchin. Smith+Howard flips. Cherry Baekert ropes Calvetti Ferguson.

By CPA Trendlines Research

KKR, the global investment firm synonymous with “leveraged buyout,” is taking a majority stake in Crowe, 12th on the top 100 lists, for $2.5 billion to $3 billion, including $1 billion in debt.

MORE Private Equity and Institutional Capital |

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Meanwhile, the Tampa-based platform Crete Professionals Alliance is renaming itself Current and confirming that backer Thrive Holdings is earmarking up to $1 billion to roll up dozens of small and midsize local firms.

Each set of investors is deploying $1 billion or more, but with very different theses. The fact that the market is supporting both suggests the market hasn’t decided which is the better strategy.
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CPA PE Deal Tracker™: 57% Say PE Threatens the CPA Brand.

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But They’ll Take the Money.

Most CPAs are concerned that private equity is undermining the CPA profession’s reputation for independence and objectivity. Only 10% say PE will have little or no impact. Fewer still can say PE will improve client service. (CPA Trendlines)

By CPA Trendlines

It’s a toss-up between CPAs opposed to PE and those unopposed. (CPA Trendlines)

As the CPA Trendlines CPA PE Deal Tracker™ adds 13 more closings for the month of May, a new survey shows accountants worrying about PE tarnishing the image and reputation of the profession. But half say they might take the money anyway.

MORE Private Equity | MORE All 500-plus Headline Deals for the Last 10 Years

The CPA PE Deal Tracker™ now contains more than 500 headline deals and developments. Through May 31, the tracker shows 91 headline 2026 events, including 83 M&A deals. Full-year 2025 finished with 190 significant events, including 178 M&A deals. The last three consecutive months have produced the first sustained plateau in 12-month trailing M&A activity since the acceleration phase that began in 2023.

Meanwhile, nearly half of the professionals in the new CPA Trendlines survey — 49.5 percent — describe themselves as decidedly opposed to private equity investment: fiercely independent, not interested, never ever.

The rest, a bare but discernible majority, are not. They would do a deal for the right price. Or they are already in play. Or have already done a deal.

“It only makes sense to keep our options open,” says Michael Royer of Royer Advisors and Accountants in Falmouth, Maine. He is not opposed, and he is not sold, adding “it’s still a personal business — and we don’t know the full impact of AI.”

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