AICPA

Why Strategic Planning Matters More Than Ever

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Ten benefits and ten challenges.

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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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Oz Demirdoven: Why U.S. Firms Lag the World in Advisory | The Disruptors

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Success breeds complacency – and obsolescence.

Sponsored by True Advisor: The Definitive Success Guide for Client Advisory Services by Hitendra Patil

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The Disruptors
With Liz Farr

Success, long the defining strength of U.S. accounting firms, is fast becoming their most dangerous liability, according to Oz Demirdovan, a PKF executive with a global portfolio.

Flush with steady profits, deep client rosters, and decades of compliance-driven demand, many firms see little reason to change—just as the ground beneath them shifts, Demirdovan tells Liz Farr in this episode of The Disruptors.

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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The paradox is stark: the very stability that built the profession now insulates it from the urgency to adapt, leaving some of its most successful players at greatest risk of falling behind.

Demirdoven has worked in accounting worldwide, spending more than five years at Allinial Global. From his perspective, the most striking difference between accounting in the U.S. and the rest of the world isn’t just our complex regulatory environment.

“The biggest difference isn’t only regulation, it is mindsets,” he explains. “I would say, in North America, especially in the United States, firms are still very compliance anchored.”   READ MORE →

Kane Polakoff: What You’re Still Getting Wrong About CAS | Gear Up for Growth

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Too many potential clients, not enough staff or capacity.

Sponsored by True Advisor: The Definitive Success Guide for Client Advisory Services by Hitendra Patil

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

Gear Up for Growth
With Jean Caragher
For CPA Trendlines

“CAS is kicking CASS right now,” says Kane Polakoff, principal and CAS practice leader at CohnReznick, in the new episode of Gear Up for Growth, hosted by Jean Caragher, president of Capstone Marketing.

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 videos and podcasts here

“It’s on fire, especially over the last five or six years. The demand is incredible, but the key is having a strong delivery mechanism and the right capacity to provide real value to clients.”  READ MORE →

Stephanie Otero: Your Firm, Your Way | Gear Up for Growth

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Success Requires Intention, Focus, and Community.

This is a preview. The complete episode is first available exclusively to PRO Members | Go PRO here
Sponsored by The Balanced Millionaire: The Advisor Edition by Dr. Jackie Meyer | See Today’s Special Offer

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Build a 7-figure firm in just 4 hours a week!

Gear Up for Growth
With Jean Caragher
For CPA Trendlines

“Small firm practitioners need to remember that they are in the driver’s seat,” says Stephanie Otero, vice president, Small Firm Advocate at the AICPA, in this episode of Gear Up for Growth with Jean Caragher.

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 videos and podcasts here

“They have the power to intentionally design a practice they enjoy, and that truly works for them,” Otero says in a wide-ranging conversation about the most pressing challenges facing small accounting firms and the strategies that can help them thrive in an increasingly complex environment.

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Unicorns and Funerals: From Botkeeper’s Demise to Basis AI’s Rise

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How AI Accounting Went From Pioneering to Inevitable in 1 Month and 11 Years.

By CPA Trendlines Research

The $90 Million Education: Botkeeper spent 11 years and nearly $90 million teaching the accounting profession that AI could do real work. Basis, Fieldguide, and Accrual raised $250 million in a single month to finish what Botkeeper started.

In a matter of days, AI in accounting produced its most celebrated funding round and its most instructive collapse. Both developments were years in the making. Neither was a surprise to anyone paying close attention.

The leap from Botkeeper’s machine learning to Basis’s agentic AI didn’t just change the technology. It changed which companies survive.

MORE AI | Outlook 2026: Agentic AI Reaches the Tipping Point in Tax and Accounting Firms | Gen AI in Accounting: Epic Transformation, or Overheated Hype? | AI Tax App Crashes Financial Stocks on Wall Street | The $125 Billion Challenge: Intuit’s AI Platform Redraws the Accounting Map | Bot Wars: Wolters Kluwer, Intuit, Thomson Reuters Battle for AI Dominance in CPA Firms | How TaxDome and Juno Just Changed the Tax Tech Game | Meet Basis, the New AI Bookkeeper on the Block

The juxtaposition is not just ironic. It is clarifying.

What happened in February 2026 was not a story about whether AI works in accounting. The research says it does.

It was a story about which business models survive the moment when AI actually arrives — and which ones get caught between the old world and the new one, having spent years and tens of millions of dollars building toward a future that materialized faster, and harder, than anyone expected.

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