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I spend a lot of time thinking about AI. Not because I think every new AI tool is useful, and not because I want Matthew Accounting chasing whatever happens to be new this month. I spend time on it because I believe AI is fundamentally changing knowledge work right now, and over time I think it will change just about every kind of work.
Accounting is obviously where I pay the most attention. AI’s capabilities are moving faster than people, businesses, industries, regulators, and institutions can realistically understand, implement, and adopt them. I think that gap is one of the most interesting things happening right now.
I do not really question whether AI is changing accounting. It already is. What I have no idea about is how long it will take the accounting profession, businesses, clients, software companies, regulators, and everyone else to fully accept what is happening and change the way they work because of it
That part could take some time.
But I know I want us learning now.
At Matthew Accounting, we are not trying to become an “AI accounting firm.” I am not even sure that hrase will mean much in a few years. My interest is much more practical: where can AI help us create more value for our clients?
That is what I spend my time trying to understand.
We are already finding places where AI can help us get to answers faster, research more thoroughly, improve consistency, work through information more efficiently, identify opportunities sooner, and improve the quality and speed of the work. I also think we are still very early.
What excites me most about the opportunity for our firm is not simply doing today’s accounting faster.
I think the bigger opportunity is that AI will allow us to do things better than we could before.
Using AI for Superpowers, Not as a Crutch
There is one part of this that I feel pretty strongly about.
I want us using AI as a tool for superpowers, not as a crutch.
If someone uses AI as an excuse not to learn, not to think through a problem, not to develop judgment, or not to understand their client, I think that person is going to become less valuable pretty quickly. That is not how I see the opportunity.
Take an accountant who really understands accounting, has experience, understands the client, and knows how to think through a problem. Now give that person increasingly powerful AI capabilities.
That is interesting.
They can research more quickly, consider more information, test ideas, improve consistency, get through routine work faster, and spend more time thinking about the things that actually matter.
AI should make a strong accountant much more capable.
For now, we are also fortunate that human judgment, experience, wisdom, and relationships remain extremely valuable. Maybe that balance changes over time. I am not going to pretend I know exactly where this ends. But today, I think there is tremendous value in combining very capable AI with an experienced person who understands the client and knows what they are trying to accomplish.
That is where our client relationships become especially important. We already know our clients. We know their businesses, their history, their tax situation, their goals, their challenges, and the things they care about. That context gives us the ability to direct AI toward the right questions and the right problems.
Access to AI itself is going to become ordinary. Knowing what to do with it is much more interesting.
What I Think Clients Will Actually Notice
I do not expect our clients to care about every AI tool we use or how all of this works behind the scenes. What I expect them to notice is that the service gets better.
Answers should come faster and become more useful. The accounting work should become more consistent and efficient. We should be able to identify more planning opportunities and spend more time on the things that deserve real thought and attention. Clients should also have to spend less of their own time dealing with accounting.
Ideally, AI helps us give clients more attention when they need us and create less bother when they do not.
That is a much better outcome than simply trying to automate everything.
I also think accounting firms that decide AI is something they can ignore are taking a serious risk. The capabilities are simply moving too fast, and the value of basic knowledge work is going to change. Accounting will not be exempt from that.
That is not why we are moving quickly, though.
We are moving quickly because we are already seeing the benefits.
I spend a meaningful amount of my own time learning what is happening in AI and thinking specifically about where it can improve accounting. I expect our team to continue getting better at applying it, and I expect the benefits to our clients to become increasingly significant.
We are not implementing AI simply so we can say we are moving forward.
We are implementing practical solutions because they are working.
Our job at Matthew Accounting is to understand what AI means for the work we do, become very good at using it, and turn those capabilities into more value for our clients. If we do that well, our clients should simply feel that the accounting is getting better: better answers, better insight, less friction, and more useful help when it matters.
That is the opportunity I am focused on.
