I began my career in public accounting 41 years ago and spent the next 34 years in the profession before launching my advisory practice in 2019. When I started, my firm was just adopting automated trial balances. Lotus 1-2-3 and WordPerfect were replacing the ledger paper and typewriters that had defined the profession for decades. Those tools didn't just change how we worked—they eliminated the “grunt work” traditionally assigned to the youngest staff, forcing firms to rethink training, career paths, and what it meant to develop a young professional.
Since then, I've watched the Big Eight become the Big Four. I've lived through staffing droughts and gluts, the rise of outsourcing, and the constant challenge of building culture across generations who see work and technology differently. Each time, it seemed as if the challenges were deeper and more consequential than ever, with a nagging sense that we'd never been here before. That sense wasn't entirely wrong, every wave of change is unique in its particulars—but each time, we adapted and thrived.
I share this not to suggest today's changes are just more of the same. They're not. The scope and speed of what artificial intelligence can do to our profession dwarfs anything an automated trial balance system ever did. That much is true, and pretending otherwise does our profession no favors.
But I've been thinking about the Scorpions' anthem "Wind of Change" lately, and it captures something I believe firm leaders need right now: a felt sense that transformation is underway, paired with hope rather than dread about where it leads. Too much of what's written about AI and the future of accounting leans on hyperbole “nothing like this has ever happened before,” "the challenges have never been greater." That language is meant to spur action, but I think it's had the opposite effect on many leaders. Faced with a threat that sounds insurmountable, some quietly concede to others the opportunity to shape the future rather than shaping it themselves. Caution has its place—there are moments when restraint is the wiser course—but too often that concession comes far too early, before leaders have even tried to lead through it.
The opposite failure is just as costly: leaders who tell themselves this is overblown, that nominal adjustments will do, that the fundamentals of the business won't really change. That complacency may be even more dangerous than the fear, because it leaves firms unprepared for a shift that is, in fact, real and significant. Neither posture—resignation or denial—serves our clients, our people, or our profession.
There is a third option, and it's the one exceptional leaders will choose: treat this moment as a wind at our back rather than a storm to survive. Winds of change don't ask permission before they arrive—but leaders decide whether they get swept along, dig in and resist, or trim their sails and use that wind to move faster than ever toward a destination they've chosen. The firms that come out ahead won't be the ones that simply installed the newest tools. They'll be the ones whose leaders decided, early and deliberately, what kind of firm they wanted to become.
That is the real work ahead for CPA firm leadership—not simply adapting to what AI does to our profession but deciding what kind of profession we want to build with it. What do we want client service to look like when technology can produce the analysis in seconds? What does career development mean when technology absorbs the tasks that used to teach judgment—and how do we replace that training ground rather than just eliminate it? What does culture look like across generations navigating this together, some who've never known a firm without AI and others who remember when the trial balance was done by hand?
Our history gives us reason for that confidence, not complacency. We've adapted before, through changes each generation believed were unprecedented. Now it's our turn to lead—and to let the wind be at our back.