The marketing department of Cincinnati-based Barnes Dennig uses artificial intelligence for creating summaries, generating ideas for headlines and social media posts, and developing bios from resumes — but all of those are then evaluated and edited by a human marketer.
“In marketing, we leverage AI using the great description of ‘thinking of AI as a smart intern on their first day,'” explained firm managing director Jay Rammes, who was just named to Accounting Today’s 2024 Managing Partner Elite. (See the full list here.)
Marketing isn’t the only area where Barnes Dennig is applying AI — its assurance department uses AI to review thousands of leases to highlight key provisions in seconds, for instance — but it applies the same caution to reviewing the technology’s outputs.
Jay Rammes
“We’re utilizing AI across multiple practices within the firm, piloting new tools in a controlled ‘sandbox’ approach, evaluating outputs, and planning strategic steps forward,” explained Rammes.
Many of the other members of the MP Elite were similarly excited to explore AI — and similarly cautious.
Speaking specifically of generative AI tools like ChatGPT, Carla McCall, the MP of AAFCPAs (and chair of the American Institute of CPAs), said, “Yes, it has a lot of power and it can do a lot of good, but it also can be used by bad actors. So we have to be careful. We need responsible policies, and we also need to then think about what that new technology also does for risk within our firms and how are we managing that risk.”
“When I sat in on CPA.com’s and the AICPA’s AI symposium in December, what really stood out to me was the speaker that talked about developing a responsible AI policy,” she continued. “So not just, ‘Yes, you can use it.’ … It’s really about how do we create cultures where we’re all aligned on the definition of it, when we use it, how do we implement it, how do we govern it? How do we have accountability and monitoring and all of this? The bigger the firm, the more effort that it’s going to take to have us all aligned around that, so we’re using it in a responsible way.”
Having strong policies in place is important, because AAFCPAs is deeply engaged with AI. The Massachusetts-based firm is leveraging it as part of its Automation Center of Excellence, and has teams trying out Microsoft Copilot for a number of tasks, using GPT to query for Excel codes, using an AI large language model tool for tax research, and much more.
Eileen Sheridan
On the opposite coast, California-based Bartlett, Pringle & Wolf is exploring a similarly broad range of applications for AI, according to MP Eileen Sheridan — including using the same LLM tool, Ask Blue J, for tax research.
“Our firm is dedicated to leveraging AI to improve efficiency, gain deeper client insights, and provide top-notch services,” said Sheridan. “Spearheaded by our tax partner-in-charge, our team is currently exploring AI’s potential and future opportunities, along with using gen AI in our tax research.”
Making the investment
All that exploration requires investment, and the members of this year’s MP Elite are not shying away from that. For instance, Christopher Geier, the CEO of Sikich, greenlit a “substantial” budget for research and development around generative AI as soon as it became clear how much of a disruptor it was going to be (an investment made easier, no doubt, by the $250 million the firm recently brought on from Bain Capital). Among other things, the Chicago-based firm is piloting an AI-based human resources chatbot to give personalized support to staff while easing the workload of the HR team.
Vancouver, Washington-based Opsahl Dawson is getting a leg up on AI thanks to having joined private equity-backed accounting firm platform Ascend at the start of 2023.
(See what the MP Elite think about filling the pipeline of people entering the profession.)
“We are beginning the work to become a regional leader in AI thanks to the investment of powerful resources by Ascend, which is something that would have been too much to tackle by ourselves,” said Opsahl Dawson MP Aaron Dawson. “As AI’s muscle trickles down from the large national firms and gets to the large local firms, I think there’s going to be a lot of challenges with how you implement it and how you harness it. So because of Ascend, we’re going to be ahead of the game.”
“We’re going to have a special operations team that really understands and knows how to deploy different AI offerings,” he explained. “We will have a very well-thought-through strategy that will be able to be efficiently implemented at our firm and at the other firms at every level of Ascend’s platform.”
Al-Nesha Jones
To be clear, AI is not the exclusive preserve of large firms or those with major outside backing. Al-Nesha Jones’ ASE Group, for instance, which has just four employees, is just as active with artificial intelligence as any of the larger firms of her peers in the MP Elite.
“We use AI-driven tools in our accounting and tax workflows to automate data entry, analyze information, identify trends, monitor KPIs, and create more robust reporting for our clients,” Jones explained. “This technology streamlines our processes, reduces errors, saves time and mental capacity, and enhances the accuracy and timeliness of our service delivery. … By embracing AI, we improve efficiency, accuracy, and client satisfaction.”
While all of the MP Elite are exploring AI, that doesn’t mean they’re all at the same stage of exploration. San Francisco’s Kruze Consulting has a bit of a head start, according to founder Vanessa Kruze, thanks to a client base of technology companies that includes many software-as-a-service and AI startups.
“We frequently beta test the latest AI tools for startups and serve on product advisory councils for the largest accounting and fintech software providers,” she said. “This helps us to not only better understand automation and AI tools, but also provide feedback to developers. This relationship also benefits our clients because of the inroads we have developed that lead us to be able to quickly address any issues [our clients] may face. We serve some of the top AI companies in the market, which gives us a unique keyhole in the latest AI trends and keeps us on top of new advancements.”
No matter where they are in their engagement with artificial intelligence, all the members of this year’s MP Elite recognize its importance, and how important a role it is going to play in the future of their firms, and of the accounting profession.
“AI will continue to evolve at an exponential rate, and we’re going to see many significant advances in the CPA profession as well as in virtually all other sectors of the business world,” said Barnes Dennig’s Rammes. “It’s been said that AI won’t replace professionals across a variety of industries, but professionals who don’t leverage AI may be replaced by those who do.”
The International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board is proposing to tailor some of its standards to align with recent additions to the International Ethics Standards Board for Accountants’ International Code of Ethics for Professional Accountants when it comes to using the work of an external expert.
The IAASB is asking for comments via a digital response template that can be found on the IAASB website by July 24, 2025.
In December 2023, the IESBA approved an exposure draft for proposed revisions to the IESBA’s Code of Ethics related to using the work of an external expert. The proposals included three new sections to the Code of Ethics, including provisions for professional accountants in public practice; professional accountants in business and sustainability assurance practitioners. The IESBA approved the provisions on using the work of an external expert at its December 2024 meeting, establishing an ethical framework to guide accountants and sustainability assurance practitioners in evaluating whether an external expert has the necessary competence, capabilities and objectivity to use their work, as well as provisions on applying the Ethics Code’s conceptual framework when using the work of an outside expert.
President Donald Trump’s tariffs would effectively cause a tax increase for low-income families that is more than three times higher than what wealthier Americans would pay, according to an analysis from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.
The report from the progressive think tank outlined the outcomes for Americans of all backgrounds if the tariffs currently in effect remain in place next year. Those making $28,600 or less would have to spend 6.2% more of their income due to higher prices, while the richest Americans with income of at least $914,900 are expected to spend 1.7% more. Middle-income families making between $55,100 and $94,100 would pay 5% more of their earnings.
Trump has imposed the steepest U.S. duties in more than a century, including a 145% tariff on many products from China, a 25% rate on most imports from Canada and Mexico, duties on some sectors such as steel and aluminum and a baseline 10% tariff on the rest of the country’s trading partners. He suspended higher, customized tariffs on most countries for 90 days.
Economists have warned that costs from tariff increases would ultimately be passed on to U.S. consumers. And while prices will rise for everyone, lower-income families are expected to lose a larger portion of their budgets because they tend to spend more of their earnings on goods, including food and other necessities, compared to wealthier individuals.
Food prices could rise by 2.6% in the short run due to tariffs, according to an estimate from the Yale Budget Lab. Among all goods impacted, consumers are expected to face the steepest price hikes for clothing at 64%, the report showed.
The Yale Budget Lab projected that the tariffs would result in a loss of $4,700 a year on average for American households.
Artificial intelligence is just getting started in the accounting world, but it is already helping firms like technology specialist Schellman do more things with fewer people, allowing the firm to scale back hiring and reduce headcount in certain areas through natural attrition.
Schellman CEO Avani Desai said there have definitely been some shifts in headcount at the Top 100 Firm, though she stressed it was nothing dramatic, as it mostly reflects natural attrition combined with being more selective with hiring. She said the firm has already made an internal decision to not reduce headcount in force, as that just indicates they didn’t hire properly the first time.
“It hasn’t been about reducing roles but evolving how we do work, so there wasn’t one specific date where we ‘started’ the reduction. It’s been more case by case. We’ve held back on refilling certain roles when we saw opportunities to streamline, especially with the use of new technologies like AI,” she said.
One area where the firm has found such opportunities has been in the testing of certain cybersecurity controls, particularly within the SOC framework. The firm examined all the controls it tests on the service side and asked which ones require human judgment or deep expertise. The answer was a lot of them. But for the ones that don’t, AI algorithms have been able to significantly lighten the load.
“[If] we don’t refill a role, it’s because the need actually has changed, or the process has improved so significantly [that] the workload is lighter or shared across the smarter system. So that’s what’s happening,” said Desai.
Outside of client services like SOC control testing and reporting, the firm has found efficiencies in administrative functions as well as certain internal operational processes. On the latter point, Desai noted that Schellman’s engineers, including the chief information officer, have been using AI to help develop code, which means they’re not relying as much on outside expertise on the internal service delivery side of things. There are still people in the development process, but their roles are changing: They’re writing less code, and doing more reviewing of code before it gets pushed into production, saving time and creating efficiencies.
“The best way for me to say this is, to us, this has been intentional. We paused hiring in a few areas where we saw overlaps, where technology was really working,” said Desai.
However, even in an age awash with AI, Schellman acknowledges there are certain jobs that need a human, at least for now. For example, the firm does assessments for the FedRAMP program, which is needed for cloud service providers to contract with certain government agencies. These assessments, even in the most stable of times, can be long and complex engagements, to say nothing of the less predictable nature of the current government. As such, it does not make as much sense to reduce human staff in this area.
“The way it is right now for us to do FedRAMP engagements, it’s a very manual process. There’s a lot of back and forth between us and a third party, the government, and we don’t see a lot of overall application or technology help… We’re in the federal space and you can imagine, [with] what’s going on right now, there’s a big changing market condition for clients and their pricing pressure,” said Desai.
As Schellman reduces staff levels in some places, it is increasing them in others. Desai said the firm is actively hiring in certain areas. In particular, it’s adding staff in technical cybersecurity (e.g., penetration testers), the aforementioned FedRAMP engagements, AI assessment (in line with recently becoming an ISO 42001 certification body) and in some client-facing roles like marketing and sales.
“So, to me, this isn’t about doing more with less … It’s about doing more of the right things with the right people,” said Desai.
While these moves have resulted in savings, she said that was never really the point, so whatever the firm has saved from staffing efficiencies it has reinvested in its tech stack to build its service line further. When asked for an example, she said the firm would like to focus more on penetration testing by building a SaaS tool for it. While Schellman has a proof of concept developed, she noted it would take a lot of money and time to deploy a full solution — both of which the firm now has more of because of its efficiency moves.
“What is the ‘why’ behind these decisions? The ‘why’ for us isn’t what I think you traditionally see, which is ‘We need to get profitability high. We need to have less people do more things.’ That’s not what it is like,” said Desai. “I want to be able to focus on quality. And the only way I think I can focus on quality is if my people are not focusing on things that don’t matter … I feel like I’m in a much better place because the smart people that I’ve hired are working on the riskiest and most complicated things.”