If polished output becomes as easy to produce as heating up dinner, what will clients still pay your accounting firm for?
David Leary calls this AI’s “microwave moment.” Anyone can get useful results without the setup that once required technical skill. But easier tools don’t guarantee better service. They can also send generic replies or change a database without asking.
In Episode 507 of The Accounting Podcast, David and co-host Blake Oliver explore what firms can offer when competitors (and clients) have similar tools. Their discussion points toward personal attention, accountable automation, professional judgment, and relationships beyond the deliverable.
When Useful AI Requires Less Setup
David tested Meta’s AI, Muse, while researching bar events before a Bills game in Los Angeles. It produced a polished, web-page-style schedule. Blake noted that Claude could create something similar if asked for an artifact. David’s point was that he hadn’t needed to ask.
“I didn’t have to create projects,” David said. “I didn’t have to configure background agents working. I didn’t have to ask for an artifact. I didn’t even know I wanted one.”
But Blake questioned the economics. Generating those results uses tokens, which cost money. David noted that basic use is free, with paid subscriptions available to heavier users, but both remained skeptical of Meta’s privacy promises.
Easier, faster work also raises a pricing question. Blake cited PwC partner Jeanelle Johnson, who said clients now expect some projects that took eight to ten weeks to take about four.
“If the time shrinks, what happens to the bill?” Blake asked. He expects consulting fees to fall unless firms deliver more value.
That pressure also affects how clients reach the firm.
Your Client’s AI May Become the Front Door
David asked Muse to book a haircut. It couldn’t because his barber only takes phone calls. He warned that firms without online booking may lose business when clients ask AI assistants to schedule appointments.
Blake imagined a firm with its own MCP server, which is a connection that lets AI assistants work with its systems. Clients could submit documents through their assistant. “No more portals, no more emails.” David pictured an agent finding tax documents in Google Drive, sending them to the accountant, booking an appointment, and paying.
These are future possibilities rather than a current firm setup. David also said he hadn’t connected Muse to his email or calendar because of privacy concerns.
The hosts disagreed about the platform risk. Expensify’s availability in Claude and Xero’s connections with ChatGPT and Claude worry David. He feels like vendors are “training your users to not open your app.” But Blake sees integration as necessary: “If they don’t, somebody else will do it.”
For Blake, AI assistants are becoming the main interface, like an operating system. But a convenient interface can’t replace personal attention.
Better Presentation Is Not Personal Service
After blood work, David received a generic cholesterol message recommending 30 to 60 minutes of daily exercise. His doctor already knows he exercises because they attend Orangetheory classes together. David suspects AI wrote the note, though he couldn’t confirm it.
His concern was that busy accountants would send similarly pointless replies. “Why did I hire this person just to send me a templated email?” Blake asked, capturing the client’s likely reaction.
Presentation still matters. A video Blake shared showed how companies once treated annual reports like carefully designed publications. He recommends firms make reports attractive enough that clients want to open them. David emphasized the experience, not simply making reports fun to look at.
That care should also extend to what AI can change behind the scenes.
Give Agents Limits and Develop Human Reviewers
Blake’s AI, acting through his administrator access, added a “pending” status to the hosts’ advertising database. David fixed it quickly, but said an unnoticed change could have caused calculation errors or overpayments. He reduced Blake’s access afterward.
Blake called it “a good lesson in internal controls.” For his own month-end close, he gives his AI agent a separate Xero login without administrator rights. Its actions appear separately in the audit trail. David agreed agents should have their own inboxes and logins so firms can track activity and control access.
Permissions address one problem. Developing judgment is harder.
Blake described PCAOB chair Jim Logothetis’s distinction between audit’s “science” (transaction work and procedures) and its “art” (skepticism, judgment, and industry knowledge). David wasn’t convinced, suggesting AI is good at those things too.
Blake pictured managers, directors, and partners supervising agents. When David asked where future reviewers would learn judgment, Blake answered, “By doing the work.” He then acknowledged the problem: “How do you make more reviewers if you don’t have preparers, and nobody’s figured that out yet.”
This was a forecast, but both hosts said they haven’t seen meaningful accounting job losses from AI. Blake argued that talent shortages could make AI an opportunity to do more with fewer people.
Even capable teams, though, need a reason for clients to choose them.
Build Something Beyond the Deliverable
Blake discussed Giles Pearson’s Accounting Today op-ed comparing AI in accounting with Spotify in music. Streaming gave musicians global distribution, but competitors gained the same access. Musicians had to build identities, audiences, and experiences beyond recordings.
Pearson warns adopting AI isn’t a strategy by itself. Early adopters may gain an edge, but that advantage fades as tools become widely available.
Blake endorsed Pearson’s advice to build community through seminars, roundtables, and client events. “What musicians today sell is the relationship,” he said. David added: “The experience.”
For firms, the challenge is to pair easier access and faster work with controls, judgment, and service clients recognize as personal.
Listen to Blake Oliver and David Leary discuss these trade-offs in Episode 507 of The Accounting Podcast.