Thomson Reuters' 2026 AI in Professional Services Report dropped in January. 1,514 professionals surveyed across 27 countries. We flagged the headlines in Monday's roundup. Here's what the rest of the report actually says about what your clients want from you.
74 percent of corporate tax buyers say their outside firms should be using AI. Three percent say they shouldn't. And 67 percent have no idea whether their firm is using it on their work right now.
Your clients want it. Less than 20 percent will mandate it through formal guidelines. Almost none will ask you directly. They're working from an information vacuum, and they're filling it with assumptions about what you do and don't bring to the work.
The report buries the consequence on page 21. The same in-house teams that say firms should use AI are quietly insourcing the low-value, repeatable work that previously came to you. If you're not telling them you use AI, they assume you don't — and they're routing work accordingly. Silence isn't neutral. It's a billing decision your clients are making for you.
Disclosure isn't a confession. It's a trust signal.
Here's what nobody is telling you about disclosing AI use to clients.
In my own practice, AI has changed how I deliver tax advice in one specific way. When I'm working through a tax position, I've usually already formed a view — based on experience, the client's facts, and the rules I've internalized. The view is typically correct.
What I miss are the second- and third-order consequences. The treatment that's right on the primary issue but creates an exposure two filings down the line. The election that's correct for this year but boxes the client in for the next three.
That's where AI has been most valuable. I run the position through the AI, ask for the issues I haven't considered, and force the model to challenge my assumptions. It surfaces what I missed when I was narrowly focused on the primary answer.
Then I bring those issues back to the client. The line is consistent: "I ran this through my AI tools, and this is what I want to talk to you about."
Not once has a client responded with skepticism. Not once has a client said, "Then why am I paying you?" Every single time, the response has been appreciation for the additional rigour.
This is the part that should change your behaviour. The fear that AI disclosure invites a discount conversation is a partner-side projection. The Thomson Reuters data confirms it — 87 percent of corporate tax respondents say AI should be applied to their firms' work. Those are the people you're afraid to tell.
Hiding your AI use costs you the credit.
The report has a finding that explains the silence. Only 18 percent of organizations measure ROI on their AI investment. Of those that do, 77 percent track internal cost savings. Just 26 percent track client satisfaction. Just 17 percent track new business won.
You're running AI as an internal efficiency play. The savings book against your own P&L. The client never sees the work. The client never gets to credit the work. And while you're not telling them, they're not waiting around — they're evaluating you against firms they suspect are using AI better, with no actual evidence either way.
Combine that with the insourcing finding and the cost of silence comes into focus. Your clients' in-house teams are using AI to absorb the work you used to do. They're not asking permission. They're not announcing the shift. They're keeping work in-house that previously went to you, because they assume you don't bring anything to it that AI can't.
That assumption is wrong. But it stands until you challenge it.
Make the work legible.
The fix is structural. The AI work has to show up somewhere the client sees it.
When AI surfaces a second-order tax consequence, that becomes the agenda item for the next meeting. When AI deepens a variance analysis, the depth shows up in the report you deliver. When AI accelerates planning prep, the planning memo presents three positions instead of one. The artifacts are how clients credit the work — and visible artifacts are the foundation of every value-based pricing conversation that's coming.
Your judgment is still the product. The AI surfaces. You decide which surfaced issues matter for this client. You take responsibility for the recommendation. You're the one whose name is on the file when the IRS sends a letter.
Visible AI use doesn't substitute for any of that. It demonstrates that you're applying every available tool to the work the client is already paying for.
The firms that hide their AI work are pricing themselves into the commodity layer in real time. They're being graded by clients who can't see the value-add and assume there isn't one. The firms that surface their AI work are setting the foundation for a different conversation entirely.
Start with one sentence, this week.
Pick the next client meeting on your calendar where AI played any role in your prep — even a small one. Open the conversation with what AI surfaced and why you wanted to talk about it. That's the entire shift.
No new tools. No new pricing model. No new tech stack. Just a different sentence at the start of a meeting you were already going to have.
Your clients want this. They won't tell you. And they won't know you're providing it unless you say so.
Are you going to be the firm they assume isn't using AI, or the firm they know is?