AI

Is AI Contributing to Burnout?

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About 71% are feeling overwhelmed by A.I. (via Brainstorm Group, HB Publishing & Marketing Co.)

How you can cope and thrive

By Randy Crabtree

A new Cal Berkeley study of a 200-employee U.S. technology company found that AI didn’t free up workers’ time as promised. Instead, it expanded what workers felt capable of and willing to take on.

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I suspect we’re seeing the same thing in the accounting profession and other areas of professional services.

My firm’s annual CPA Career Satisfaction survey found that accountants overwhelmingly agreed that AI would benefit their firms long-term. However, most also felt AI would contribute to personal stress and burnout in the short run.

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Lochhead, Yoon: What Accountants Do when AI Makes Accounting Free | The Distruptors

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The old answers to old problems don’t work anymore.

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The Disruptors
With Liz Farr
For CPA Trendlines

Accountants, one of the most prized varieties of knowledge workers, are in trouble. AI is coming for the jobs. But Christopher Lochhead and Eddie Yoon may have an answer.

MORE DISRUPTORS: Ira Rosenbloom: PE Forces Firms to Pick a Future | Doug Slaybaugh: How to Define “Values in Motion” | Nancy McClelland: Bookkeepers Need a Safe Space to Collaborate |Chase Damiano: Good Operations Means Defining How the Hand-Offs Happen | Jeff Seibert: Digits Software Moves Toward Real-Time Accounting | Tyler Anderson: Audit Transformation Is a Mindset, Not a Destination | Sarah Flischel: The End of the SALY Audit | Sharrin Fuller: Build It Better, Then Let It Run Without You | Oz Demirdoven: Why U.S. Firms Lag the World in Advisory | Rebecca Driscoll: A Millennial and a Boomer Walk into a Bar… |

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Lochhead and Yoon, who style themselves “the Category Pirates,” are suggesting the biggest change in the nature of work in decades.

In the age of AI, Eddie Yoon says, “knowledge is essentially free.” The credentials, specializations, and years of study that went into becoming an accountant are becoming commodities. Yoon describes a pyramid of knowledge work. At the base is “memorize and regurgitate,” where the majority of professionals have thrived. Above that is “synthesize and curate.” And at the rarefied top are the non-obvious connections: the insights that link disparate facts in ways no one else sees. AI, he argues, is already demolishing the lower tiers.

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Supkis Cheek: Most Accountants Are Missing This AI Shift | ARC

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The profession is changing in ways that go far beyond automation.

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Originally published May 7, 2026 
The step-by-step operating guide for firms building, pricing, and scaling advisory services that clients value—and pay for.

Accounting ARC
With Donny Shimamoto
Center for Accounting Transformation

In a profession often defined by structure, standards, and well-worn career paths, Donny Shimamoto, CPA.CITP, CGMA, opens a different kind of conversation in a recent Accounting ARC episode—one that challenges assumptions about what it means to build a career in accounting.

His guest, Danielle Supkis Cheek, embodies that challenge.

As senior vice president of AI, analytics and assurance at CaseWare, Supkis Cheek operates at the intersection of technology, methodology, and human judgment. But her path there was anything but linear—and that, Shimamoto suggests, is exactly the point.

MORE Accounting ARC: AI Can Fix Your Workflow—or Break It in Seconds | Efficiency Is the Wrong Goal for AI | 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 |

Supkis Cheek describes her role less as a technologist and more as a translator. “I like to think of myself as someone who translates across domains,” she says, explaining how she helps software companies understand how accountants actually work—and how technology can reshape those workflows.

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Private Equity’s Big Bet Faces an AI Shake-Up

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But scale may matter more, not less, in the accounting and legal markets.

By CPA Trendlines Research

The same technology that promises higher margins could weaken the billable-hour economics that made professional services so attractive.

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

Private equity’s rush into law and accounting is running into a new question: What happens to a roll-up strategy built on professional labor when artificial intelligence starts doing more of the work?

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Doug Slaybaugh: How to Define “Values in Motion” | The Disruptors

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Are your firm’s stated values consistent with its behavior?

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The Disruptors
With Liz Farr
For CPA Trendlines

How does your firm define culture? Is your culture consistent with the values posted on the breakroom wall? Doug Slaybaugh, founder of CPA Coach, defines culture as “values in motion.” According to this definition, a firm’s stated values must be evident in the ways a firm actually behaves.

MORE DISRUPTORS: Candy Bellau: The $350 Pricing Mistake that Nearly Broke this Boutique Firm | The Disruptors | Poe: What P.E. Really Wants from Firms | The Disruptors  | Blake Oliver: Build a Biz that Runs Without You | Daiber: Use Succession as a Growth Strategy | Cannon: Busy Season is Self-Inflicted | Carroll: When One Person Can Break the Firm | Rampe: Build a Roadmap Even When the Road’s Not There | Chang: Killing SALY, One Agent at a Time |

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A firm with the value of philanthropy, for example, should give team members the ability to volunteer or sponsor nonprofit events. “There should be evidence,” Slaybaugh explains. “Otherwise, there’s no evidence of that value. It’s really not your culture.”

Slaybaugh’s previous firm had the often-clichéd value of “people first,” but actually executed on that. Team members were offered the option to buy an additional month of PTO, prorated from their salaries, resulting in an 11-month year with nearly two months of vacation.

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