Why advisory will define the next era of accountancy

The biggest impact AI will have on the accountancy profession is not simply that it will make tax compliance faster.

It is that it will force us to be much clearer about where our real value lies and rethink how we develop the people capable of delivering it.

Work that once absorbed significant time across tax returns, computations, research and compliance can increasingly be automated or accelerated.

That creates an obvious efficiency gain. More importantly, it creates capacity. And what firms choose to do with that capacity will define the next era of the profession.

From compliance to planning

Compliance will always be fundamental, but increasingly it is the starting point rather than the full value of the client relationship.

The bigger opportunity is helping clients make better decisions before the tax consequences are fixed.

For an entrepreneur considering an exit, it could mean thinking about structure, available reliefs and their plans for the proceeds well before a transaction takes place.

Technology can help us identify these opportunities earlier, research the options faster and model different scenarios. But the calculation is only part of the answer.

The real value lies in understanding what the client is trying to achieve and applying technical expertise to that wider context.

That is the shift I think AI will accelerate: from documenting tax consequences to helping shape better outcomes.

Efficiency creates capacity. Trust creates value.

There is a temptation to measure the impact of AI primarily in hours saved.

How much faster can we prepare a return? How quickly can we research a technical question? How many manual processes can we remove?

Those questions matter. But efficiency alone is not a strategy. The more interesting question is what we do with the time we get back.

Good advice requires judgement, context and commercial understanding. And that creates another challenge we are not talking about enough.

Advisory is not an add-on

Technical expertise will remain fundamental. But tomorrow’s strongest tax advisers will need more alongside it: commercial awareness, curiosity, communication skills and the confidence to challenge clients constructively.

AI can support all of those people. It cannot create them for us.

For years, advisory has sometimes been treated as something that sits alongside the core compliance relationship. I think that distinction will become increasingly outdated.

The value of tax advice is greatest when it is embedded in a client’s decision-making, rather than delivered after the decision has already been made.

AI gives us the opportunity to do more of that. But if firms simply use the efficiency gains to process more work with fewer people, we will have missed the bigger opportunity.

The firms that benefit most will use the capacity AI creates to build deeper client relationships – and give the next generation earlier, better and more structured opportunities to learn how to advise.

Clients do not simply need someone who can tell them how much tax they owe. They need people who understand their ambitions, recognise opportunities before they are obvious and have the judgement to help them make better decisions.