ai? inescapable. but don’t forget cybersecurity.
by roman kepczyk
the rosenberg national survey of cpa firm statistics
wild ride: as i am primarily focused on accounting firm technology and departmental production, i will limit my observations to it, where the big trend will be that we will continue to see a profusion of new ai-assisted applications coming at firms from all directions, at an increasingly untenable pace. i think that the reality of the mantra stating, “you won’t be replaced by ai, but by someone using ai” will sink into every accountant’s brain in 2025 and the urge to jump to solutions will be overpowering
editor’s note: every year, the 2024 rosenberg national survey of cpa firm statistics asks the profession’s top consultants two sets of questions:
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- how do you think the next 12 months will unfold? trends? predictions? other thoughts?
- how would you assess the last 12 months? trends? observations? struggles?
more: what’s going to happen? lots, say consultants | growth and complacency must concern accounting firms this year | solving staffing requires intention | how accounting firms are handling the staff shortage | the future of fees | as private equity closes in, firms seek new answers to staffing problems | when staffing falls short, clients get culled | how accounting firms are dealing with retirement | next five years are critical for accounting firms | staffing turnover’s down, but why? | what’s your firm worth? private equity wants to know
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like the dotcom boom of the early 2000s, i’m already seeing firms display a significant amount of anxiety around making application decisions and paralysis around concerns about integrating tools that could shortly be replaced by another, better product. my advice is to research peer success, pilot small and learn fast (or at least fail fast and move on).
the wild card in this ai environment will be whether the “big 3” accounting vendors swoop up these ai startups to maintain dominance or allow a new conglomerate of ai companies to partner together to earn a seat at the table for either a comprehensive tax or assurance solution (i think the latter).
for a single technology prediction, i think firms should continue to be hypervigilant on cybersecurity. according to the identity theft resource center, at least 15 cpa firms announced publicly that they had been breached through june 30, 2024, and i believe that number is woefully unreported based on discussions with (and surveys of) accounting firm peers. i would expect a continued increase in the number of firms being breached in the second half of 2024, and then that number being eclipsed in 2025. firms will continue to move to professionally managed security providers to get peace of mind (and because the professional liability and cyberinsurance providers will probably make them do it).
nailed it! last year, our 2024 top trend prediction targeted ai evolution into “applications that accountants use” happening at an astonishing rate. with microsoft’s launch of copilot for 365 (outlook, teams, excel, word, etc.) in january 2024, that prediction started building the ai wave for accountants this year. this was followed over the summer by a constant stream of announcements from each of the major accounting vendors that they had integrated generative ai solutions into their products (thomson reuters and wolterskluwer/cch announcing “ai-assisted” research and intuit announcing ai assist). the surprise for me was in the number of startups that were shaking up the game such as black ore, taxgpt, bluej, etc. and the rapid rollout of “private” generative ai solutions from pwc, bdo, and even rightworks with spark (ai.rightworks.com) providing custom chatgpt solutions for accountants.
in addition to the ai trend, our top “technology” prediction was the importance of firm leadership upping their firm’s cybersecurity game, which was boosted by the ftc requirement for all tax firms to have a wisp (written information security plan). we saw “cyberawareness” of firms advancing overall by the continuous migration of firms to the cloud, the adoption of security awareness training and the increase in firms partnering with “enterprise-level” managed security providers.