ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Lexy Kessler: Your Future Depends on These Three Questions | Gear Up for Growth

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At stake: Growth, relevance and survival.

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Gear Up for Growth
With Jean Caragher

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CPA firm leaders must act decisively on technology, talent strategy and long-term identity or risk falling behind in a rapidly evolving marketplace, Lexy Kessler, Chair of the AICPA and a partner at Aprio, tells JJean Caragher in a new episode of Gear Up for Growth.

MORE Jean Caragher here | Get her best-selling handbook, The 90-Day Marketing Plan for CPA Firms, here MORE Gear Up for Growth | MORE CPA Trendlines Streaming Network here

In a wide-ranging discussion, Kessler focuses on three urgent priorities for firm leaders.  

    • AI Adoption Is No Longer Optional 
    • The Talent Pipeline Is Showing Real Progress, and 
    • Firm Leaders Must Recalibrate Who They Want to Be 

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Efficiency Is the Wrong Goal for AI | ARC

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Value, quality, and effectiveness—not cost savings—should define success.

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Accounting ARC
With Liz Mason, Donny Shimamoto, and Byron Patrick
Center for Accounting Transformation

Does meaningful AI adoption require scale, budget, and the dedicated innovation teams embedded in large accounting groups? In this episode of Accounting ARC, Donny Shimamoto, CPA.CITP, CGMA; Byron Patrick, CPA.CITP; and Liz Mason, CPA, take on a familiar—but increasingly flawed—narrative in the accounting profession: that large accounting teams will define AI success

The reality, they argue, looks very different on the ground.

MORE Accounting ARC: Accounting’s Hidden Talent Risk: The Sandwich Generation | Built Fast. Sold Faster. Broken Later? The Truth About Accounting Tech | Recognize When You Need to Recharge Before You Burn Out | Valuing More Than the Balance Sheet | Accounting’s “Untalked-About” Frontier | Why Happiness is Hard-Fought for High Achievers | The Fastest Way to Lose Talent Is “Dick Leadership” | Post-Holiday Fatigue Isn’t a Failure; It’s a Signal | OCR, Research Bots & Meeting Assistants: What Actually Helps Now | Return Season is the New Stress Test | Small Firms May Have the Biggest Advantage in 2026 | Downgraded: What the DOE Said About Accounting |

What starts as a reaction to a “big firm” innovation discussion quickly turns into a broader reframing of how small and mid-sized organizations should think about artificial intelligence—not as a race for efficiency, but as an opportunity to increase value, improve quality, and deepen client relationships.

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21 Hard-Earned Lessons from Tax Season 2026

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And What 20 Years of Data Say Comes Next

By CPA Trendlines Research

There is a ritual to tax season. It begins with anticipation dressed as control.

Practitioners tally the risks — the IRS, the law, the clients who will not deliver on time — and tell themselves this year will be different. Then the season starts. And it isn’t.

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The CPA Trendlines Busy Season Barometer tracks that ritual across waves of surveys from September 2025 through April 2026 with more than 300 respondents.

The data show not a profession in crisis, but a profession under stress. Where pressures no longer arrive one at a time but stack up on each other. Where external shocks have been absorbed, and internal limits have come into view.

Tax season is full of noise, chaos and confusion. But a close look at the Busy Season Barometer from this year – and going back more than 20 years – can cut through the fog for the patterns, trends, insights and, most of all, the tough lessons learned.

Tax season 2026 gives us at least 21 essential takeaways.

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Tipping Point: Accountants Scramble for AI-Enhanced Tax, GL, and Workflow Apps

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New workflow systems expected to cut labor problems and shore up profit margins.

Coming out of tax season, more than 55% of firms are looking for new artificial intelligence solutions, up 10 points from before the season. The scramble for practice management and workflow solutions has almost doubled. (CPA Trendlines Research)

By CPA Trendlines Research

The CPA Trendlines Busy Season Barometer shows accounting firms are already planning changes to their technology and workflows, aiming to address the same pressures that defined this year’s busy season.

The research points to a profession broadly aligned with what needs to change, but much less aligned with how quickly those changes can be put into practice.


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Firms across the spectrum, whether reporting a better or worse tax season, identify similar priorities: improving efficiency, reducing manual work and making better use of technology.

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