The exam is widely regarded as one of the hardest professional licensing exams in the United States, with pass rates typically ranging from 30% to as low as 2%. Candidates must navigate thousands of pages of CBP regulations, directives, rulings, and procedures, as well as The Harmonized Tariff Schedule which includes 99 chapters covering every tradable product.

The results reflect �������� commitment to Fiduciary-Grade AI^TM – built to meet a higher standard than general productivity tools, to stand up to scrutiny and with outputs that are reliable and verifiable.

Embedded within the existing ONESOURCE Global Trade Management platform, Global Trade Research AI represents a significant development in trade compliance technology. Demonstrating advanced regulatory reasoning, document-based reasoning at scale, and complex synthesis of multiple sources to help with trade-based research tasks. Unlike general-purpose AI tools, the system is trained on over 100,000 pages of authoritative government sources, including Federal Register notices, CBP CSMS messages, and executive orders.

Meeting Strategic Demands in Trade Compliance
The launch comes as trade departments experience unprecedented elevation within their organizations. According to �������� 2026 , 43% of trade professionals report increased budgets for hiring, while 37% report more frequent involvement in executive decision-making.

“Trade teams are being asked to become strategic partners rather than operational functionaries,” said Ray Grove, head of product, Global Tax and Trade, ��������. “They need tools that can provide instant, accurate regulatory intelligence to support real-time business decisions.”

The shift reflects broader changes in how organizations view trade compliance. More than three-quarters of legal trade professionals (76%) believe current U.S. tariff approaches represent a permanent change rather than temporary policy tools, according to the report.

And, it reflects growing enterprise adoption of specialized AI tools for professional services. Unlike consumer-focused AI applications, Global Trade Research AI is purpose-built for regulatory compliance workflows and trained exclusively on verified government sources rather than web-scraped content.

Technical Capabilities and Accuracy
Global Trade Research AI processes natural language queries such as “What are the current tariff rates for HTS 8708.29 from Mexico vs. China?” or “What FTA benefits apply to automotive parts from Mexico?”�� The system synthesizes information across multiple regulatory sources and provides cited responses within seconds.

Key technical features include:

• Authoritative sourcing: Every response includes citations linking to primary government documents
• Real-time updates: Knowledge base refreshes as regulations change, with average update times under one business day
• Trade-specific intelligence: Understands HTS codes, duty drawback procedures, customs warehouse operations, and FTA rules
• Integrated platform: Embedded directly within ONESOURCE Global Trade Management workflow
• The system’s performance across 18 runs of the CBP licensing exam – spanning three years of changing tariff policy, demonstrates consistent ability to handle complex regulatory scenarios that typically require extensive professional training.

This is Fiduciary-Grade AI in practice: every answer is traceable, every source is authoritative, and the system is built to support decisions where being wrong carries real professional and financial consequence. Trade professionals can access Global Trade Research AI through their existing ONESOURCE Global Trade Management platform, maintaining workflow continuity while adding AI-powered research capabilities.

Fiduciary‑Grade AI is �������� standard for how AI should work in high‑stakes professions. It’s AI designed for professionals with duties of care and regulatory oversight – drawing on our authoritative, domain‑specific content; protected by rigorous privacy and security safeguards; shaped by subject‑matter experts; and designed to produce transparent outputs that can be verified.

Almost Right is Not Good Enough��

Before professionals operating in high-precision fields can fully embrace deeper AI integration into their everyday workflows, they need to know that the AI they are using stands up to scrutiny and that its outputs are reliable and verifiable.

For generations, professional trust has been defined by standards, certification, and fiduciary duty. When someone carries a designation like CPA in accounting or JD in legal, we understand both their qualifications and the obligations that govern how they must act. If we expect AI to start to take on more meaningful shares of human time, then as we assess a human’s fitness for purpose for a job, we must also validate an AI’s fitness for purpose.

High Stakes Professional Work Requires a Different Standard

In regulated professions that prioritize accuracy, accountability, and trust, AI must be built to a Fiduciary-Grade standard. That means real, factual, authoritative sources, traceable reasoning, and transparent outputs that are ready for human review and verification under professional and regulatory expectations.

As AI takes on more responsibility in completing professional work, it does not assume any additional accountability. That accountability remains entirely human. Professionals remain responsible for the judgments made, the advice delivered, and the outcomes that follow. Fiduciary- Grade AI is designed to support human judgment, not replace it, by producing work that can be examined, explained, and defended under real-world professional and regulatory scrutiny.

The Four Principles of Fiduciary-Grade AI��

Fiduciary‑Grade AI is defined not just by what it produces, but by what it is allowed to access, retain, and rely upon in generating outputs that inform professional judgment.

AI grounded in authority; with access to the right context.
A Fiduciary-Grade AI system must derive its substantive outputs from authoritative, curated, and domain-specific content, not just information scraped from the open internet, while also operating with the full context required to complete professional work. Every material output must be traceable to a source that a qualified professional can independently locate, cite, verify, and trust. And only when AI agents can access, know, and act on the specific data, knowledge, systems, and tools can they complete the complex, multi-step tasks that professional work demands.

Data privacy and security are imperative.
Where privacy is paramount, Fiduciary‑Grade AI is built to protect it. Privacy and security must be structural features of the system’s architecture, not policy overlays or configurable options.

Built with human expertise, not just human oversight.
Professional workflows must be designed, tested, and continuously refined with meaningful involvement from credentialed subject matter experts in the relevant professional domain. When ambiguity or risk arises, the system must recognize its limits and bring professionals back in rather than generating an output that overstates its reliability, keeping accountability human and outcomes defensible. Fiduciary-Grade AI requires that customers have access to real-time human support to ensure transparency and trust.

Transparent, verifiable reasoning.
By clearly surfacing and referencing the sources it relies on, AI must be able to provide a reviewable trail of what the system did and what it relied on, sufficient to allow a qualified professional, and, where applicable, a regulator, court, or auditor – to evaluate the basis for the output and determine whether the result is reliable and defensible. Making each step in its planning, reasoning, and execution process visible to the user is vital to helping young professionals learn and grow.

This is the standard we build to at ��������, and the standard delivered through CoCounsel for legal, tax, audit, and compliance professionals. As AI moves deeper into regulated work, the defining question is no longer whether a system can generate an answer – it’s whether professionals can verify and stand behind the result.

In law, starting work has never been a constraint. Finishing it accurately, defensibly, and at a professional standard is. We are already seeing that distinction begin to shape how this market is evolving. While AI is expanding where work begins whether that’s in a general-purpose AI tool, an email, or inside a document workflow, it is not the system that can stand behind the result. In practice, the control point in legal AI is not the interface where work is initiated. It is the system where that work is validated, grounded, and completed.

AI can now draft, summarize, and analyze in seconds. This is changing how legal work begins. But legal work does not end with a draft. It ends when someone can put their name on it. That requires outputs to be grounded in authoritative sources, validated for accuracy, and traceable back to their origin. These are system-level requirements.

There is a growing narrative that AI will replace enterprise systems. What’s actually emerging is a separation of roles: AI is where work begins; professional systems are where it is executed, validated, and completed. AI assistants are becoming the place where work begins, while professional systems are where that work is executed, validated, and completed. These roles are complementary, but not equal. The layer where work begins is broad, fast-moving, and increasingly interchangeable. In practice, the layer where work is completed is where trust and accountability sit. It is also where meaningful differentiation shows up, because that is the layer responsible for producing outputs professionals can stand behind. Trust is built into the architecture, including the content, the validation, and the way outputs are produced.

As AI becomes embedded across more tools and environments, work can start almost anywhere. The question is where it resolves, and what system ensures it is right. Our expanded partnership with Anthropic, as outlined in our recent announcement, reflects how this is starting to take shape. , connecting that work directly into professional systems helps ensure it carries through to completion with the rigor required in professional settings. This is less about embedding a system into every interface and more about ensuring that wherever work begins, it can be completed in systems designed to stand behind the result.

The most advanced legal organizations are already operating this way. They use general-purpose AI to accelerate early thinking and exploration, and professional systems to complete high-stakes work. This is already happening in firms like . The pattern is not that AI replaces the system, but that the two now perform distinct and complementary roles. AI is not replacing the system. It is changing how work flows into it.

As this architecture evolves, the distinction between where work starts and where it finishes is becoming more important, not less. Work will begin everywhere, but it will not finish everywhere. When that validation layer is missing, the consequences are already visible, from hallucinated citations to filings that cannot withstand scrutiny. Systems that can validate it, ground it in authoritative content, and make it defensible in real professional contexts. The next generation of CoCounsel Legal, now in beta, reflects this shift, with customers increasingly relying on it to complete workflows end to end.

“The new version of CoCounsel is now one of the first tools I turn to when I want to get work done. Where I once used CoCounsel for specific tasks, I now start nearly everything with it.”
— Sterne, Kessler, Goldstein & Fox PLLC

The next phase of this market is unlikely to be defined by who helps professionals start work fastest. It will be defined by who enables them to finish it with confidence.

Additionally,��Rawia Ashraf, Head of Product,��CoCounsel��Transactional & GCOs,��was named��one of ILTA’s 2026 Influential Women in Legal Tech honorees, recognition that reflects her contributions at the intersection of AI and legal work.��Samantha Delaney, Senior Solution Consultant, AI Specialist��was also recognized, winning��the Young Professionals to Watch Award.��

Solution Provider of the Year��

The Solution Provider of the Year Award recognizes technology providers that have demonstrated exceptional partnership and transformational impact within the legal industry. �������� earned this recognition for CoCounsel Legal, which has redefined what fiduciary-grade AI looks like in legal practice.��

CoCounsel��Legal brings together legal research from Westlaw, practical guidance from Practical Law, and AI-powered document analysis and drafting, all within a single platform. One million professionals across 107 countries and territories have access to��CoCounsel, the foundational technology underpinning��CoCounsel��Legal.����

The impact CoCounsel Legal is having across the legal industry speaks for itself. Legal professionals report dramatic efficiency gains, with tasks that once took eight or nine hours now completed in one to two hours.��The quality of work has improved too, with lawyers gaining confidence in the thoroughness and accuracy of��its��outputs.��

There have been��big benefits, given CoCounsel Legal can complete full workflows.��

Firms are taking on more clients, expanding into new practice areas, and competing more effectively against larger, better-resourced competitors.��Across the board,��CoCounsel��Legal is not just saving time; it is fundamentally changing what legal teams are capable of.��

Trailblazer Award��

The Trailblazer Award, shared by �������� and��, recognized the two organizations’ early adoption initiative as a model for responsible, enterprise-scale AI deployment.��

Womble Bond Dickinson is a full-service��international��law firm, and in��2025, they��partnered with �������� to roll out��CoCounsel��Legal��to 650��timekeepers (including 457��qualified lawyers)��across all 7 of its��staffed��UK offices, ahead��of its launch to the UK market.��The initiative spanned a rigorous evaluation phase, a strategically constructed pilot group, and a rollout anchored by an executive-led training initiative.��

The firm notes that its lawyers are consistently choosing to use��CoCounsel��Legal every month, and that it is delivering real value across the organization.��

Rawia Ashraf, Head of Product,��CoCounsel��Transactional & GCOs,��named one of ILTA’s 2026 Influential Women in Legal Tech Honorees��

Rawia Ashraf was named one of ILTA’s 2026 Influential Women in Legal Tech honorees, recognition that reflects her broader contributions��to��legal technology.��Rawia��has��been instrumental in accelerating responsible AI adoption and driving��measurable outcomes across the legal industry, and her work on CoCounsel��Legal exemplifies the kind of product innovation the honor is designed to celebrate.��

Formerly an��antitrust attorney focusing on civil and criminal antitrust litigation��at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett,��Rawia��joined �������� in 2013.��She��was responsible for��leading the integration of��the��$650 million acquisition of��Casetext��into ��������. Additionally, she led the build and launch of��CoCounsel��Drafting as well as the development of the next generation of��CoCounsel��Legal, now in beta.��

Samantha Delaney, Senior Solution Consultant, AI Specialist wins��Young Professionals to Watch Award��

Samantha Delaney��won��the Young Professionals��to Watch��Award, which��recognizes��rising young professionals in the legal technology industry.��Her inclusion on this list��is��due��to her��demonstrated��steady growth, strong technical capability, and an insightful approach to supporting her colleagues and customers.��

Samantha is currently also��Adjunct Professor of AI and Technology��at��Osgoode��Hall Law School, and prior to joining ����������was a Senior Innovation Advisor at Norton Rose Fulbright, driving strategic adoption of emerging technologies across the��firm.��

These��awards��reflect Thomson��Reuters��continued commitment to building AI that meets the��highest standards of the legal profession and the people��leading��that work.��This work will continue with the launch of��the��next generation of��CoCounsel��Legal��in September.������

��

It is not simply a marker of adoption or growth. It is a sign of trust.��One million professionals chose to trust �������� in��transforming��how they work.��They chose to��test and learn��to rely on something new, and to integrate AI into moments that matter. Each one��represents��a small but meaningful act of transformation: a lawyer who found an hour back in their day, a tax professional who turned research into insight, a compliance officer who had the right information at exactly the right moment. Those moments are why we build.

But if��I’m being��honest, one million is not enough.��We are winning the professional AI market for legal, tax, and compliance—but we are not dominating it.��Not yet. And the gap between those two things is what propels us forward.

Transformation Is a��Journey,��not��a Headline

If you have ever tried to change something fundamental—a process, a company, or a mindset—you know transformation is rarely clean or linear. It is messy. It is slow. It is full of hard conversations and rainy days when true north is hard to find and progress feels elusive.

At ��������, we have experienced all of that. What we have learned is that progress compounds when you keep showing up, block out the noise, and stay anchored to the mission.

Over the past two years, we have been transforming from a historically content-driven company into an AI-powered technology company. That shift takes more than shipping features or adopting new tools. It requires unlearning deeply ingrained habits, questioning long-held assumptions, and building the courage to change how decisions get made.

My role as CTO is to see where change needs to happen, incite it, and steer it—while also��setting��the guardrails and tripwires that keep us from going off the rails. Our��teams’��role is to push against those boundaries and show us when they need to move. That tension between rigor and exploration is where innovation happens.

Creating Sparks of Change��

We see that tension��manifests��most clearly in how change happens. Transformation does not come from large committees or perfect plans. It comes from small, empowered teams making focused progress.

Across ��������, those teams have been the catalysts of change. They moved quickly, tested boldly, learned fast, and shared what worked and what did not. Their work is often unglamorous and invisible, but it is the reason this transformation is real.

They are also the reason CoCounsel exists. They turned agentic AI from a bold idea into something��nearly a��million professionals now use in their daily workflows.

Building Trust from the Inside Out

One of the most important lessons we learned early is that trust cannot be layered on after the fact.��It has to be engineered into the system.

Two years ago, we launched AI Assisted Research—the first generative AI feature in Westlaw. We had a vision of what good looked like, but the reality taught us that defining ‘good’ in generative AI is an iterative process, not a one-time decision.

What felt strong in our research loops needed refinement when put to the test with real human feedback. Legal professionals expected both the precision they relied on and the fluency they were beginning to experience elsewhere. Each round of feedback sharpened our understanding. Each deployment taught us something new about where the bar needed to be.

Those months were challenging, but they were also formative. The conversations with customers and with each other—the honest ones about what was working and what��wasn’t—made our AI more reliable and��reshaped��how we think about accountability in AI systems. We learned how to build solutions with high trust. And in building trust,��slow��became fast.

But over time, this focus on trust created trade-offs we��hadn’t��fully��anticipated. Every verification layer we added, every human review checkpoint, every conservative threshold—they made our AI trustworthy. But they also made us less��versatile,��less ambitious. More precise, but less fluid. More reliable, but less delightful.

We��optimized��for never being wrong. Our users wanted us to also��optimize��for being genuinely helpful.

From Vendor to Partner

Understanding that gap changed how we think about our relationship with customers. We do not want to be another vendor with a product. The world does not need more vendors.

What professionals want, and deserve, is a partner. A partner who listens, adapts, and is honest when something does not work. A partner who understands that trust is earned slowly and lost quickly.

This next phase of our transformation is about moving from transactional relationships to true partnerships. It is about building tools with our customers, not just for them, and meeting them where they are in their own transformation journeys.

Looking Ahead

One million users��proves��we��are��trusted. What it��doesn’t��prove yet is that��we’ve��built the AI professionals genuinely want to use—not just the one they know��won’t��fail them.

That’s��what comes next.��We’re��keeping the trust��we’ve��earned while closing the gap on experience. Being both precise and ambitious. Both reliable and delightful.

This is harder than what��we’ve��done so far. It means moving faster without cutting corners. Being bolder without being reckless. Matching the pace of consumer AI without abandoning professional standards.

But��here’s��what I know: the teams who evolved AI Assisted Research into Westlaw Deep Research—the industry’s most advanced legal research system—and who built CoCounsel into something a million professionals rely on—they’re��not done.��We’re��not done.

Learn more about CoCounsel

But professional work��doesn’t��work that way.

When a lawyer needs to draft a court-ready brief, when a tax professional needs to navigate multi-jurisdictional compliance, when an auditor needs to assess risk across thousands of transactions—they��don’t��need the cleverest chatbot. They need AI that understands their work, their standards, and their accountability.

That’s��what��we’ve��built. And the market is responding.

One million professionals have chosen CoCounsel. Not for pilots. Not for experiments. As core infrastructure for how they work. We serve leading enterprises across legal, risk, compliance, tax, accounting, audit and global trade in 107 countries and territories.

While competitors are��showcasing��demos,��we’re��delivering deployments. While startups are raising capital,��we’re��generating revenue. While others are figuring out trust,��we’ve��already earned it.

The Four Pillars of Professional AI—And Why We Lead

�������� has been building technology and using AI for decades. But what��we’ve��done with generative AI over the past two years puts us in a category of our own.

Professional-grade AI��requires��four essential components working together. �������� has all four��at scale:

We have��the technology. We work with every leading AI lab—Anthropic, OpenAI, Microsoft, AWS, Google—and��we’re��developing our own AI model built specifically for professional work.��We’re��not dependent on a single vendor or locked into one approach. We can use the best technology for each specific workflow.

We have the content.��Decades of curated, authoritative professional content that��can’t��be replicated. Not web-scraped data—the actual��sources��professionals stake their reputations on.

We have��the��expertise. 4,500+ domain experts who understand what “good” looks like in legal, tax, and compliance work. They define quality standards,��validate��outputs, and ensure our AI meets professional requirements.

We have��the tools. CoCounsel integrates directly into the professional workflows and platforms our customers already use—from Westlaw��and��Checkpoint��to Microsoft 365.��Our AI doesn’t sit outside��the��work; it becomes part of��the��work.

These four components working together let us build AI capabilities that others simply��can’t.

Westlaw Deep Research��on CoCounsel Legal��can analyze thousands of documents and synthesize complex legal findings because we combine frontier AI models with our authoritative content library and domain��expertise��to ensure accuracy. Ready to Review��on CoCounsel Tax and Audit��can prepare complete 1040 tax returns—not suggestions or drafts, but finished, filed returns that meet IRS standards—because our tools integrate directly into professional workflows with the quality standards our experts define.

Having one or two of these components means you can build demos. Having all four means you can build products professionals trust with their reputations.

We Have Advantages That Accelerate Our Lead

Having��the four��essential pillars is necessary. But two��additional��advantages strengthen our position:

We have��the��scale. One million professionals using our AI in production��teaches��us things competitors��can’t��learn from pilots. Every edge case becomes common. Every rare failure happens daily. That feedback loop makes our AI��better,��faster.

We have the capital. �������� invests more than $200 million annually in productized AI and��has��11 billion dollars��in capital capacity through 2028 to fund continued innovation and selective acquisitions.

But having all four pillars plus scale and capital only matters if professionals��actually trust��your AI with their work. And trust at this level—where reputations, client relationships, and regulatory compliance are on the line—requires a different approach than consumer AI.

Trust��and Capability:��Our Competitive Advantage

Here’s��what we��learned��building AI at scale: in professional work, you need both trust and breakthrough capability. One without the other��isn’t��enough.

Consumer AI��optimizes for��impressive demos. Professional AI must deliver results you can stake your career on,��while��actually transforming��how work gets done.

Two years ago, we launched AI Assisted Research,��the first generative AI feature in Westlaw. We had a vision of what “good” looked like, but��deploying to��real legal��professionals taught us that defining quality in AI is iterative, not one-time.

Those early months were challenging. Every conversation with customers, every piece of feedback, every deployment taught us something new about where the bar needed to be. We learned that professionals expect both the precision��they’ve��always relied on from �������� and the��transformational capability��they’re��experiencing with generative��AI.

We built for both. And we used what we learned to build something even better.

Every piece of feedback from AI Assisted Research informed how we developed Westlaw Deep Research—now the world’s leading AI legal research capability. Deep Research��doesn’t��just answer legal questions; it analyzes thousands of documents, synthesizes complex findings across��jurisdictions, and delivers court-ready analysis with the citations and reasoning professionals require.��It’s��what happens when you combine frontier AI technology with authoritative content, domain��expertise, and real-world learning from a million professionals.

That same approach drives everything we build. CoCounsel delivers capabilities no one else can match��–��the most advanced legal research system in the world, and the first AI that can prepare a complete 1040 tax return. Not suggestions or��drafts, but��finished work that meets professional standards.��

These��aren’t��incremental improvements.��They’re��capabilities that fundamentally change��what’s��possible in professional work.

And we deliver them with the trust professionals require:��

• ��Accuracy you can stake your reputation on��– because we verify outputs against authoritative sources��
• Transparency you can explain to clients and regulators��– because we show our reasoning and cite our sources��

• Security that guarantees your data stays yours��– because we understand professional confidentiality��isn’t��negotiable��

• Integration with professional workflows��– because AI that sits outside your tools��doesn’t��transform your work��

This is what professional-grade AI means.��Breakthrough capability with professional trust.��And this is why one million professionals chose ��������.

We’re��Accelerating—And Defining the Future

One million users��proves��we’re��the leader in professional AI. But leadership��isn’t��a milestone—it’s��a commitment to staying ahead.

We’re��advancing��development��of our vertically specialized language model designed specifically for legal, tax, and compliance work.��We’re��expanding��CoCounsel’s��global footprint.��We’re��releasing new workflow-specific capabilities throughout 2026 that will further separate us from competitors.

Because��here’s��what we know: the real AI race��isn’t��about who builds the smartest general-purpose model.��It’s��about who can deliver transformational ROI in high-stakes professional environments where trust is non-negotiable.

�������� is��leading��that race. We have��the technology,��expertise, content, tools, scale, and capital. We have one million professionals��who’ve��chosen us as their AI partner. And��we’re��building the best professional AI in the world.

This��isn’t��the beginning of our AI journey—we’ve��been on it for decades. But it is the moment when the market recognizes what��we’ve��become: a leading AI technology company��that’s��defining what professional-grade AI means.

One million professionals are already experiencing that future. And��we’re��just getting started.

Learn more about CoCounsel.����

Tax, Audit and Accounting has always been a profession built on rigor and responsibility. But the reality of running a modern practice is complexity keeps rising, timelines keep tightening, and client expectations keep evolving. Firms are being asked to do more, faster—without compromising quality.

Why this matters for firms

This recognition is not just about a new solution being introduced—it’s about what firms are prioritizing right now. Across the industry, leaders are focused on creating repeatable capacity—not just surviving busy season. They’re prioritizing workflows that are reliable year-round. That means reducing friction in the return process, improving consistency across teams, and ensuring professionals have the time to apply judgment where it matters most.

That’s the lens I bring to . It’s designed to support the parts of the tax return process that can slow teams down, so professionals can stay focused on the work of humans: review, judgment, accountability, and advising clients with confidence.

Restoring time for professional judgment

There’s a lot of discussion about automation and the future of work. What I see in firms today is more practical: talented professionals spending too much time on repetitive steps, and not enough time on review, coaching, and client conversations.

The opportunity here is to shift time back to the professional—so firms can:

• Strengthen quality and consistency
• Improve responsiveness to clients
• And make the work more sustainable for teams

Honorable Mention: Ready to Advise

Accounting Today also gave an Honorable Mention to , which supports tax planning and advisory services.

That matters because once firms create more capacity, the next question is how to use it. Many firms are looking to grow advisory in a way that’s scalable and consistent – grounded in strong workflows and clear client outcomes.

Recognition like this is meaningful for us at ��������. But it’s even more meaningful because it reflects progress our customers can feel. When firms can rely on their technology to create more capacity and consistency in the work, they can serve clients with greater confidence. They can support their teams through peak demand, and make the practice more sustainable. That’s the kind of win we’re focused on: one that strengthens firms and the professionals who power them.

Elizabeth Beastrom is President, Tax, Audit & Accounting Professionals at ��������

��

Ready to Review is our new cloud-based, agentic AI tax workflow solution built on CoCounsel. For tax year 2025, it modernizes 1040 tax return preparation. It’s designed to take on the heavy, repetitive work of gathering client documents and preparing returns—so tax professionals can focus on what drew many of us to this profession in the first place: problem solving, critical thinking, and delivering great counsel to clients.��

For too long, firms have been stuck in a pattern that everyone recognizes as unsustainable—ever more complex returns, tighter deadlines, and mounting pressure on teams already stretched thin. Busy season has become synonymous with burnout and staffing strain. AI alone won’t fix that. But AI put to work in the right way—through agentic AI deeply embedded into tax workflows—can fundamentally change the equation.��

A Better Way Through Busy Season

The goal is not to replace professional judgment, but to clear away the manual, time-consuming tasks that prevent professionals from using that judgment to its fullest. Ready to Review gives firms a single, cloud-based, scalable platform that automates the gather and tax prep stages of the��workflow—helping firms manage more individual returns with existing staff while��maintaining��quality and control.��

We’re��already seeing the impact. Indiana-based CLH CPAs & Consultants��participated��in our early adopter program and saw��the potential for��transformative time savings. As Bob Lange, Partner at CLH, told us:��“Reducing return preparation time by��approximately an��hour on each simple 1040 is significant in terms of efficiency gains. For firms like ours, these time savings will be a game changer.”��

I’ve��said before that I expect firms will��ultimately pair��each CPA with at least one virtual agent. is a tangible step in that direction. It brings that 1:1 vision closer to reality by embedding Gather and Tax Preparer AI agents directly into the 1040 workflow in a way��that’s��responsible, auditable, and grounded in trusted �������� tax content and compliance��expertise.��

The Next Step for 1040 Prep

As solutions like Ready to Review become part of the day-to-day fabric of tax work,��we’ll��see fewer 80-hour��weeks��and more time spent on the nuanced, client-focused work that truly differentiates firms.��We’ll��make room for new talent who are excited about a career that leans into analysis and advisory rather than pure grind.����

Ready to Review is now generally available in the United States for 1040 use cases, and its launch marks an important milestone in our broader journey with agentic AI on the�� platform.��It’s��one more way��we’re��helping firms modernize in a way that is practical, grounded, and built for the realities of tax season.��

Elizabeth Beastrom is President of Tax, Audit & Accounting Professionals at ��������

At ��������, our starting point is, and will remain, methodology. For decades, firms have relied on �������� PPC methodology as the gold standard for audit quality, documentation, and compliance. Our vision for AI in auditing builds on that foundation. We’re not asking firms to change how they practice. We’re focused on making PPC the most AI‑automated audit methodology in the market—through our own products and through deep partnerships with innovators our customers already trust.

That’s the idea behind our recent partnerships with , , , , , and . Together, we’re embedding PPC into AI‑driven tools across We’re supporting AI-powered automation with , so firms can automate more work while staying grounded in the trusted methodology they already rely on.

Trullion: Methodology‑aware automation for financial statement review

Financial statement review is one of the most judgment‑intensive parts of the audit—but many of the underlying procedures are repeatable. Our integration with Trullion brings AI‑native automation to financial statement review and testing, with full traceability back to PPC methodology and the relevant guidance at every step.

Artie Minson, CEO at Trullion, describes the shift: “This partnership signals a new era for audit automation and lays the foundation for trusted and truly agentic workflows. Our vertical AI solution is built for auditors by auditors, ensuring our outputs are within the framework of professional standards. This integration creates methodology-aware automation. Auditors can now focus their time on applying judgment to fully evidenced, agentic outputs, rather than searching for them, delivering audits with unmatched efficiency, accuracy, and quality.”

For us, “methodology‑aware” is key: automation is valuable only when it operates within the same professional framework firms already use to define, document, and support their work.

Audit Sight: Substantive analytics that reduce testing

Substantive testing is another area where firms feel the strain. Even when technology is available, many teams still default to large samples and manual procedures.

As T.C. Whittaker, Co‑Founder and CEO of Audit Sight, puts it: “Audit firms are seeking smarter ways to expand capacity and elevate quality without adding headcount. Bringing automated testing together with ��������’ PPC methodology — and enabling it through Guided Assurance — is the ultimate unlock for auditors. It transforms the audit plan itself, making it intelligent and dynamic by tailoring procedures, eliminating unnecessary tests, and reducing sample sizes based on automated evidence and client-specific risk. This partnership represents a shared vision to redefine how assurance is delivered in the modern era.”

Crunchafi: Automating lease procedures inside PPC

Lease accounting has become a complex, time‑consuming area for many firms. Too often, teams spend hours on calculations and reconciliations instead of higher‑value work.

By integrating Crunchafi into Guided Assurance, we bring seamless lease accounting automation directly into PPC‑based workflows, eliminating manual lease calculations and providing audit-ready journal entries, amortization schedules and footnote disclosures while preserving firms’ established methodology.

Mike Cooke, CRO at��Crunchafi, explains: “Audit teams want efficiency without sacrificing quality. By aligning��Crunchafi’s automation with the PPC Methodology, we’re giving firms a clearer, more reliable way to handle lease accounting from the start of the engagement to the final deliverable.”

This is the pattern we’re aiming for: automation that plugs into how firms already work, rather than asking them to start from scratch.

Fieldguide: Empowering Firms with Flexible Paths to Automate PPC Methodology

Many firms also want a more connected environment where methodology, evidence, and automation all live together. Our goal is to meet firms where they are – and give them options.

That is why we’ve partnered with Fieldguide to embed Guided Assurance—which delivers PPC methodology—directly into Fieldguide’s professional‑grade agentic AI platform. This creates a unified experience where trusted PPC content and intelligent automation collaborate to execute engagements efficiently and consistently.

Whether firms choose to automate audits with �������� or Fieldguide, they can be confident they’re using the most trusted and automated methodology in the profession. This flexibility reflects our commitment to innovation and the unique needs of our customers.

Jin Chang, Co-Founder and CEO of Fieldguide says: “Firms are under pressure to do more with less. They need trusted methodology and AI agents that work the way they do. By embedding �������� PPC methodology into our platform, we’re helping firms deliver higher quality work with more consistency and less effort. This partnership reflects a shared commitment to the future of the profession.”

Validis: Data as the foundation for AI‑driven auditing

AI is only as good as the data behind it. For many firms, getting clean, audit‑ready data from clients is one of the toughest operational challenges.

Through , our work with Validis focuses on solving that. Validis powers secure, on‑demand ingestion of client trial balance, general ledger, and subledger data directly into Audit Intelligence. From there, we use AI and machine learning to focus testing on high‑risk areas, segment populations by risk, and reduce the number of items to be tested, with anomaly detection automatically surfacing unusual items and generating the required documentation.

As Jeff Gramlich, Managing Director at Validis, explains: “We’re excited to collaborate with ��������, a true market leader and innovator, to deliver audit-ready data through our cutting-edge ingestion capabilities. This partnership provides auditors with the data breadth and granularity crucial for effective AI-driven auditing. By integrating our technology into the Audit Intelligence suite, we’re empowering auditors to conduct data-driven audits with enhanced efficiency and risk analysis, ultimately transforming the process to benefit both auditors and their clients.”

Valid8 Financial: Turning evidence gathering into an automated workflow

Finally, there’s the everyday work of matching samples to evidence and documenting that work in a way that stands up to inspection and peer review. This is some of the most manual and time‑consuming work in an audit.

, developed with Valid8 Financial, automates the matching and documentation of samples to supporting evidence, dynamically tracing accounting transactions to banking activity to confirm occurrence. It brings technology traditionally used in advisory, forensic, and financial crime work into an integrated audit workflow.

Brett Suchor, CEO of Valid8 Financial, says: “We built our technology to solve real problems auditors face every day – reducing the manual, time-consuming work of matching samples to evidence. Through our collaboration with ��������, we’re delivering a faster, more reliable testing experience to audit professionals across the industry.”

The future of Audit

In the next 3-5 years, we’re going to see big changes to the audit profession. Audit is moving decisively toward an automated, data-driven future. Using the right tools to increase efficiency and quality so teams can focus on higher risk areas and deliver better outcomes for clients is paramount.

In today’s environment, firms are being asked to do more with less, navigating tighter deadlines, increasing complexity, and growing client expectations. At ��������, we are bringing auditors advanced audit technologies, with our��newest audit solutions��increasing efficiency and accuracy.

We’ll keep investing in our own AI capabilities and in this partner ecosystem so firms can modernize at their own pace, on their own terms—without walking away from the methodology that has served them well for decades.

This post was authored by Dave Wyle, General Manager of Audit at ��������.

At TechCrunch Disrupt 2025, the buzzword wasn’t “AI.” It was scale. How do you take technology powerful enough to transform billion-dollar industries and make it trustworthy enough to run them?��

That’s the challenge �������� has been solving in real time.��

At the Women of Disrupt Breakfast: From Vision to Velocity, Women Driving AI Innovation at Scale, Laura Safdie (Head of Legal Innovation, ��������, and former co-founder of Casetext) and Kirat Sekhon (Head of Engineering, ��������) joined Martine Paris, Forbes and BBC AI reporter, for a conversation on building agentic AI that doesn’t just assist professionals, but collaborates with them.��

From Startup Grit to Global Infrastructure��

Laura Safdie knows what it means to build from scratch. Before joining ��������, she co-founded Casetext, the legal AI startup that created CoCounsel, the world’s first GenAI legal assistant.��

“When GPT-4 launched, we knew the ground had shifted,” Laura said. “The world, and our profession, would never be the same.”����

Within a week, Casetext rewrote its roadmap and shipped a working product that redefined legal work. Months later, �������� acquired Casetext, turning that same startup innovation into the foundation for a professional-grade AI ecosystem now used across legal, tax, and corporate domains.��

Today, CoCounsel powers workflows for hundreds of thousands of professionals worldwide, combining the speed of machine learning with the rigor of human judgment.��

The Next Evolution: AI as the Junior Professional��

Forget chatbots. The next era of AI is here, and it looks a lot like your most capable new hire.��

In law, that means systems that can draft, review, and analyze complex documents with context and accuracy. In tax and accounting, it means interpreting new regulations, scanning data sets, and preparing the groundwork for filings at lightning speed.��

“The human is still the strategist,” Kirat explained. “But the AI is that relentless team member who never tires, never loses focus, and helps you get to the insight faster.”��

This isn’t automation. It’s augmentation. It’s about freeing people to do the creative, analytical, and human work that truly moves the needle.��

Why Trust Is the Killer Feature��

In high-stakes industries, accuracy isn’t optional. “Close enough” doesn’t cut it.��

That’s why trust has become the new measure of technical excellence. �������� builds AI that shows its work, with authoritative citations, verifiable sources, and a full digital audit trail.��

Whether it’s a contract analysis or a tax interpretation, professionals can trace every step. Transparency isn’t an add-on; it’s the architecture.��

In a world where hallucinations can tank credibility, professional-grade AI earns trust one verified line at a time.��

Building Fast Without Breaking What Matters��

Innovation moves at a blistering pace. Models update weekly; frameworks shift overnight, and what’s state-of-the-art today can feel dated tomorrow.��

That’s why �������� has engineered adaptive architecture. A flexible layer that lets teams integrate new large language models, swap them out, and test emerging capabilities with precision and control.��

Every model passes through a rigorous evaluation framework that measures accuracy, speed, and relevance. Engineers even collaborate directly with model developers, shaping future releases with real-world performance data.��

But speed isn’t just about shipping code. It’s about changing how people think and work. “This is the most energizing moment in many people’s careers,” Laura said. “But it takes a mindset shift. Change management is as important as the technology itself.”��

Resilience as the Invisible Superpower��

When cloud providers falter or networks crash, professionals still expect their tools to perform. That’s why resilience is built into every layer of the �������� AI stack.��

The company’s systems are multi-cloud and multi-model by default. If one model slows, another takes over. If a provider fails, others stay live. It’s a design built for continuity, transparency, and trust in motion.��

Reliability is no longer a technical metric. It’s a brand promise.��

The Human Edge����

�������� is hiring AI engineers and data scientists who want to build the future of agentic systems. AI that collaborates, learns, and adapts alongside professionals.��

The goal isn’t to replace human expertise. It’s to elevate it.��

The future of professional work will belong to teams that combine computational intelligence with human judgment, creativity, and integrity. AI isn’t just transforming how we work; it’s transforming how we lead.��

The Takeaway��

The companies that win in this new era won’t just move fast. They’ll build right.��

The next wave of AI innovation will be defined by systems that scale, teams that adapt, and leaders who build with trust and purpose.��

As Laura and Kirat reminded the audience at TechCrunch Disrupt, the goal isn’t just smarter technology. It’s a smarter, more human future for professionals everywhere.��