Insights, guides, and updates
Jason Staats listed the six reasons firms get stuck on AI — every one written for the partner who signs the cheque. But if you're the one who got told to "figure out AI," the blockers look completely different. Here's what you can do without anyone's permission, and the short list to ask your firm for.
On Tuesday, Anthropic released the most capable AI model ever made public. By Friday, the US government had switched it off worldwide. Add OpenAI retiring models on its own schedule, Google force-defaulting Gemini, and QuickBooks killing classic reports — and the week's lesson is hard to miss: you don't own your AI supply chain. Here's how to build for it.
AICPA leadership opened Engage 2026 by naming AI the top issue for CPA firms of every size. After four days on the floor — AI-native ledgers, closed walls, and a profession aiming at 2030 — here's why the real deadline is 2028.
In the last few months, agents running on Opus 4.8 and GPT-5.5 changed what AI can do — but the training most firms will buy to keep up is still a 2024 prompt-engineering course. The skills that actually build an AI-native team are learned through reps in your own work, and the most valuable may not even count as CPD. Here are the six questions to grade any AI training before you book it.
Ramp shipped an "AI operating system" built for accounting firms, Karbon and Firm360 opened MCP sockets to whatever AI you bring, Thrive put $1 billion on the table to buy firms like yours — and 69% of tax pros told a surveyor the hourly billing model is ending. Not one major model release all week. The fight has moved up the stack, to who holds your firm's encoded knowledge and who controls the door.
YC's AI stack works because they gave the agent direct access to their data. Most CAS firms have done the opposite — locked AI out of everything and then wondered why it isn't very smart. The real question for your firm isn't whether to give AI access. It's how much, of what, with what controls.
