How KPMG's AI Dashboard Backfired
KPMG rolled out an AI usage dashboard in late 2025. The target, according to reporting we covered on the show, was roughly 75% of the working day. Three out of four days, you need to be in an AI tool, doing something. So what did KPMG's people do? They had AI summarize emails they'd already read. They asked it to make drawings. Anything to show activity on the dashboard. There's a name for this now: token maxxing.
The Private Equity Accounting Bet Is Starting to Look Shaky
CBIZ's stock is down 51% over the past year. The market is sending a signal. And if you've been watching private equity's push into accounting, you should pay attention to it.
AI Is Coming for Tax Pros, Not TurboTax
Intuit's stock is down 59%. Is AI really going to kill TurboTax? That’s the story on LinkedIn and on Wall Street right now. But as we discussed on a recent podcast episode, the real disruption target might be your firm.
The Accounting Trick Inflating the AI Bubble
If OpenAI doesn't IPO, or if the IPO disappoints, its paper gains start reversing. The index funds that bought in at inflated valuations start selling. The feedback loop runs in reverse. That's how bubbles pop. Not always in a dramatic crash, but in a slow correction as the gap between paper profits and real cash flows becomes impossible to ignore.
The Solo Firm Isn’t New. Its Ability to Scale Is.
The "firm of one" used to be a ceiling. It was the choice you made when you valued lifestyle over scale. You could have a great life, but you couldn't get rich. That ceiling just turned into a floor. Thanks to AI agents, the smallest firms will soon achieve the highest margins.
Could AI Clone QuickBooks? One Developer Already Did
If a self-taught developer can clone the core functionality of QuickBooks in a weekend, what does that say about the defensibility of accounting software?
Why Cost Accounting is the Wrong Way to Value Artificial Intelligence
AI can prepare a tax return. But is tax prep the bottleneck in your firm? If AI speeds up tax prep while the partner review queue moves at the same pace, your throughput remains the same. That’s the problem with applying cost accounting to the ROI of artificial intelligence.
PwC vs. EY: The Big Four Make Opposing Bets on AI
Anthropic’s AI Exposure Index actually tells a more nuanced story than the headlines suggest. Yes, business and finance has near-ceiling theoretical exposure. But the observed exposure — what's actually being automated today — is still low. There's a gap.
“Go Clean Your Room” and Other Ways to Get a Straight Answer from AI
Accounting systems need to be deterministic. There is no "probably correct" in a general ledger. You can't have a system running autonomous best-guess operations against books that a client is going to stake business decisions on — and that you're staking your reputation on.
When AI Can Prepare a Partnership Return, What Happens to the Business Model?
For decades, the complexity of business tax returns functioned as a moat around compliance revenue. If AI can cross that moat, even partially, we need to rethink some assumptions.