AI

Seven Keys to Maintaining Trust

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portrait of Julie Johnson
Johnson
 Julie Johnson, CIMA, CFP,  is the founder and chief engagement officer of XY Communication and a former senior vice president with UBS. She helps financial professionals to increase engagement with existing clients, prospects and peers by improving their ability to communicate, connect, and build trust and loyalty.

Yes, with your clients, but also with your team.

By Julie S. Johnson
The Holistic Guide to Wealth Management

The Insurance Network for Fiduciary Advisors reported that 96 percent of clients are looking for wealth transfer advice from their advisors while they’re still alive, but fewer than one in four (25%) of financial professionals provided it to their clients.

Why is there such a disconnect?

MORE Rory Henry and The Holistic Guide to Wealth Management
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So many financial professionals have told me it’s not their job to hold clients’ hands during the emotional challenges of death, divorce, inheritance. “They hire us to take care of their financial goals and challenges, not be their therapist,” advisors tell me again and again. This comment, and multiple variations of it, are what I hear often after speaking or writing on this topic.

That disconnect is your opportunity as a CPA!
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Kenji Kuramoto: Basis Moves to Close AI’s Biggest Gap

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When accountants and AI agents work side-by-side

“The future of the profession is accountants and agents working together,” Kuramoto says.


By Seth Fineberg
For CPA Trendlines

“Managing partner-in-residence” is not a standard role in accounting, and that was the first point of friction when Kenji Kuramoto was asked to explain his new job at Basis, the accounting AI agent company. What does that actually mean?

The answer goes beyond one hire. It points to a shift now underway in accounting: artificial intelligence is moving out of experimentation and into operations, and firms are not yet prepared for what that requires.

MORE Kenji Kuramoto: Behind Sorren’s Roll-Up: $170 Million, 1,000 Employees, 85 Partners | Kenji Kuramoto: Rules? What Rules? | Getting Real: Accounting Tech Decisions You Need to Make Today
MORE CPA Trendlines Streaming Network

Basis, at getbasis.ai, says that Kuramoto, founder of cloud pioneer Acuity, joined full-time to help firms transition to AI-enabled operations, working directly with customers and shaping the product. The company made clear this was not a symbolic role. “Kenji isn’t here to advise from the margins,” CEO Matthew Harpe says. “He’s a full-time member of this team… creating the product with us.” Kuramoto is embedded with the company, not observing from the outside.

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 Busy Season 2026: Clients, Pricing, Staffing… CRUNCH

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CPA Trendlines Busy Season Barometer: Modest Gains, Mixed Outlook, Cautious Tech Upgrades Ahead

Top concerns: “The returns aren’t harder—they’re just later.” (CPA Trendlines Busy Season Barometer)
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By CPA Trendlines Research

The 2026 tax season shows some gradual improvement for certain firms, but most practitioners report conditions that remain largely unchanged from a year ago, according to the latest data from the CPA Trendlines Busy Season Barometer.

For More Busy Season Trends and Strategies: Join the survey. Get the results.

MORE Tax Season 2026

The good news is: 2026 hasn’t turned into the disaster some were expecting with a new tax law and diminished IRS. The bad news is: 2026 is turning into a relatively routine year — without the advances in workflow or the better margins from higher-value services that some were hoping for.

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How AI Upends CPA Firm Pay Structures: Bloomberg Talks with Piscopo

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Big 4 Transparency founder Dominic Piscopo makes featured appearance on Bloomberg.

By CPA Trendlines

Accounting firms are being forced to rebalance compensation structures—shifting pay and incentives away from entry-level staff and toward managers and reviewers—as artificial intelligence reshapes how work gets done, according to Dominic Piscopo, host of Big 4 Transparency on the CPA Trendlines Streaming Network.

MORE Dominic Piscopo and Big 4 Transparency | MORE CPA Trendlines Streaming Network

Piscopo’s full discussion on AI, compensation trends, and the future of accounting talent is available on Bloomberg Tax’s Talking Tax podcast. His ongoing analysis of salary data and workforce trends is featured on the Big 4 Transparency show, streaming on CPA Trendlines.

“Having transparency in those models and being willing to talk about it with people —not just have this very kind of cold process where a number is thrown out—can make all the difference, even if the number is exactly the same,” Piscopo tells Bloomberg Tax reporter Jorja Siemons.

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Why Strategic Planning Matters More Than Ever

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Ten benefits and ten challenges.

diagram
Based on a concept by Eric Teller, director of Google X

By Matt Rampe

Our world is changing at an increasing rate.

Eric Teller, CEO of Google X research and development lab, says that “even though human beings and societies have steadily adapted to change, on average, the rate of technological change is now accelerating so fast that it has risen above the average rate at which most people can absorb all these changes.”

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This probably will not come as a surprise. Artificial intelligence, cloud-based solutions, automation and data analytics are rapidly advancing and changing the way accountants work forever.

And the rate of change is not limited to just technology. Barry Melancon, former CEO of the AICPA, said, “We faced a level of disruption none of us had ever experienced before,” at the end of 2020, but the changes have not stopped or slowed. Similarly, in an Accounting Today article, current AICPA CEO Mark Koziel said, “You’re going to hear, ‘Disrupt, disrupt, disrupt.’ I hate that word. How many people want to be disrupted? How many people want a root canal? But the whole marketplace is being disrupted – it’s not just us.”
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