Key takeaways:

• • • Stability is the story — The OBBB’s main value has been predictability for business planning, not sweeping new rules — a sharp contrast to the disruption of prior major tax legislation like the TCJA.

    • Section 1202 is a live opportunity — The expanded QSBS exclusion has reopened planning conversations around corporate structuring that had cooled in recent years.

    • Plan for both today and tomorrow — Practitioners should help clients capitalize on current certainty while preserving flexibility, and they should help clients build tax positions that can hold up to increasingly AI-powered IRS scrutiny.

When major tax legislation lands, the instinct is to brace for upheaval. But one year after the passage of the (OBBB) Act, the consensus among practitioners is notably different: The OBBB didn’t rewrite the rules so much as confirm them, and that distinction has mattered more than it might sound.

Certainty over seismic change

Unlike the (TCJA) — which was passed in 2017, mostly took effect the following year, and forced practitioners to relearn much of the code — the OBBB’s significance lies less in what it changed and more in what it settled. It gave businesses a stable set of rules to plan against, rather than a moving target to which to react.

“From a purely tax lens, it was… easier to unpack than in prior years because there are fewer seismic changes,” says , Partner at Plante Moran, reflecting on the past year under the OBBB. “It was providing a lot of clarity that just [meant], at least for the next several years, we had the rules.”

That clarity is not a small thing. Multi-year business decisions — around such big-ticket items as entity structuring, capital investment, and succession planning — depend on practitioners being able to tell clients that the rules will hold. Thus, OBBB’s real contribution was buying back that predictability.

Section 1202 comes back to life

If one provision captures the OBBB’s practical impact, it’s the revitalization of — the qualified small business stock (QSBS) gain exclusion. The expansion of this program has done more than simply adjust a technical detail; indeed, it has reopened a whole category of planning conversations that had gone quiet.

“The action around the qualified small business stock gain exclusion… has really reinvigorated the Section 1202 planning conversations,” Eckert explains. “Ultimately, what we got was an expansion of the program. So, what that has done is reinvigorated those conversations around planning into corporate structures.”

For founders, investors, and the tax advisors who serve them, that means is back on the table — and often earlier in a company’s lifecycle than before, since the incentive to structure correctly from the outset is now more valuable.

A new kind of advisory opportunity

Of course, stability doesn’t mean passivity. If anything, the OBBB has expanded what tax professionals can offer clients. With a known set of rules, advisors can move beyond compliance and into genuine strategy by helping clients maximize their position under current law while still preparing for the fact that today’s certainty has a shelf life.

That balance — seize the moment, but don’t get comfortable — is a concept that isn’t lost on many tax specialists. “Maximize your opportunities today but also have a long-term view while having flexibility and preserving flexibility wherever you can, and knowing and anticipating that there could be future changes,” Eckert says, framing this moment as a broader opening for the profession, not just a technical one.

Legislative clarity, he argues, gives practitioners a reason to go deeper with clients than simply processing the next filing. “From a practitioner lens, I think [legislative changes] are a huge opportunity… giving us an opportunity to really bring value to our clients and to also get to know our clients better,” he notes. “It’s been, in a certain sense, a great opportunity to just build deeper relationships.”

In other words, the firms getting the most out of this environment aren’t the ones treating the OBBB as a compliance checklist; rather, they’re the ones using it as a reason to have a better conversation with clients about where they’re headed.

The IRS isn’t standing still either

The one area in which practitioners should definitely not get comfortable is enforcement. A smaller IRS workforce doesn’t mean lighter scrutiny — it likely means a different kind. As the agency leans more heavily on AI-driven tools, its ability to examine returns at scale is set to expand even as headcount contracts.

“I think across the board, we’re certainly aware of that and are counseling clients on the need to establish and build positions and think carefully about it,” Eckert explains. “In a world of AI-enabled tools, the scrutiny may actually increase, and the ability for the IRS to quickly and efficiently examine lots of data is something that could certainly exist.”

That means that tax advisors need to help their clients build positions that can withstand more sophisticated review, not less. Meticulous documentation and defensible reasoning matter more, not less, in an environment in which fewer human examiners can still cover more ground with better tools.

One year in, the OBBB’s legacy isn’t a story of dramatic reform, but rather it’s a story of tax firms and their clients finally getting room to plan. The tax advisors making the most of that room are the ones using it to build sharper strategies and deeper client relationships, all while keeping an eye on an IRS that’s quietly getting more capable of deeper examination.

You can find more ofĚýour coverage of the One Big Beautiful Bill ActĚýhere

Key insights:

• • • AI adoption is now a talent retention and recruitment issue — Law firms that lack professional-grade AI tools risk losing both current and prospective talent.

    • Client relationships are increasingly tied to AI-driven value — Corporate legal departments expect their outside counsel to use AI to improve productivity, quality, and innovation; however, few believe most of their law firms are meeting those expectations.

    • Law firms must rethink their business and pricing models — Although many firms feel financial pressure to accelerate AI adoption, most have not adjusted their pricing structures to reflect AI-driven efficiencies.

Law firms are experiencing unprecedented pressure from the rapid advancement of AI, which is affecting their talent recruitment, client relationships, and business models, according to deeper analysis of the recent ¶¶ŇőłÉÄęĚý2026 Future of Professionals Report.

To help law firms navigate this AI-driven disruption, ¶¶ŇőłÉÄę has published a new action paper, Future of Professionals Report 2026: Actionable insights for law firm leaders, drawing on insights from 736 law firm professionals and 203 corporate legal professionals.

Indeed, the new paper highlights that almost one-quarter of law firm professionals will refuse a job offer if the prospective firm lacks professional-grade AI tools. Further, any perceived misalignment between a professional’s AI preferences and the firm’s strategy increase the risk of attrition, especially among those professionals who value mentorship and skill development.

You can download your copy of theĚý2026 Future of Professionals ReportĚýhere

In addition, almost one-third of corporate legal professionals say they are reconsidering relationships with outside law firms that do not demonstrate how they’ll offer clear AI-enabled value within the next 12 months, the paper notes. And clients increasingly expect their outside counsel to deliver efficiency, quality, and innovation through AI; however, only between 3% and 6% say they believe most of their outside firms are meeting each of these expectations.

Finally, almost 4-in-10 law firm professionals say they are feeling financial pressure to act faster on AI, yet almost two-thirds say their firm’s pricing structure remains unchanged despite clients’ demand for new models that reflect AI-driven efficiencies and increased value.

Dealing with AI-driven challenges

The paper notes that firms with approved AI tools are more attractive to talent, while the use of unauthorized “shadow AI” by more than one-third of professionals creates security and compliance risks. To address this, firms should provide transparent AI solutions and invest in training. While AI may reduce demand for some junior roles, it may increase the need for others, especially hybrid tech-legal roles.

On the client relationship front, many corporate legal departments are facing internal pressure to adopt AI and expect their outside law firms to keep pace. In-house legal teams increasingly expect AI-enabled productivity, quality, and innovation, yet many see a significant gap between expectations and delivery. For example, 70% say they expect productivity gains, while only 6% say they believe most of the firms they work with are delivering them.

Clients, for their part, also expect pricing models that reflect AI-driven efficiencies through greater cost certainty and transparency. Outside law firms that fail to adapt may risk fee pressure, ultimately losing business to more agile competitors.

Only half of professionals see their firm’s AI strategy reflected in their daily work, and this potential misalignment could cause talent and AI adoption problems.

Fortunately, amid all these challenges for law firm leaders, the paper identifies three strategic paths law firms can take, including:

• • • Using AI to elevate by automating routine tasks that would then allow professionals to handle complex, high-value work.
    • Using AI to scale by prioritizing productivity and efficiency and handling high volumes of routine work with AI and human oversight.
    • Using AI to reimagine by rebuilding the firm around AI and offering new models like outcome-based pricing and embedded partnerships.

Unfortunately, some firms are choosing to defer this crucial decision, which increases their risk of client and talent attrition as the market evolves.

Whichever path law firms take, however, the paper makes clear that firm leadership must clearly communicate their AI strategy.ĚýThe paper notes that only half of professionals see their firm’s AI strategy reflected in their daily work, and this potential misalignment could cause talent and AI adoption problems.

The paper encourages firms to move quickly to close the gap between client expectations, talent needs, and operational realities by defining a clear AI strategy, investing in training and tools, and adapting pricing models for an AI-driven market.

Using the guidance from this action paper, firm leadership can navigate these challenges and move their law firm into a more responsive, profitable, and sustainable AI-enabled future.

You can read a full copy of theĚýFuture of Professionals Report 2026: Actionable insights for law firm leadersĚýpaper here

Key insights:

• • • AI is now a talent and client expectation, not a differentiator — A large majority of tax & audit professionals regularly use AI, and many employees and clients now expect their firms to have strong AI capabilities.

    • Firms need to choose a deliberate AI strategy — There are three primary paths for AI adoption, and no matter which a firm chooses, the key message is that firms should actively define their AI direction rather than delay decisions.

    • Successful AI adoption requires governance and people-focused leadership — Beyond implementing technology, tax & audit firm leaders must establish AI governance, clearly communicate strategy, and align their AI with employee needs.

As AI adoption within the tax & audit profession accelerates — 81% of professionals say they are now using AI tools regularly — firm leaders are experiencing unprecedented pressure from talent, clients, and their firm’s own financial performance, according to the recent ¶¶ŇőłÉÄęĚý2026 Future of Professionals Report.

For example, retaining and recruiting top tax talent remains a critical concern in the profession, and AI has just ratcheted up the pressure even more. More than one-quarter of professionals say they would not accept a job at a firm lacking professional-grade AI, and almost 1-in-3 say they would consider leaving if their expectations for AI are not met within the next two years.

To help tax & audit firm leaders better navigate this fraught environment, ¶¶ŇőłÉÄę has published a new action paper, Future of Professionals Report 2026: Actionable insights for tax & audit leaders, that provides practical guidance for navigating talent shortages, rising client expectations, and financial pressures, all within the context of the rapidly evolving technological environment.

You can download your copy of theĚý2026 Future of Professionals ReportĚýhere

Many tax & audit professionals surveyed say client expectations are rising, with AI-enabled quality becoming an important criterion for retaining outside tax & audit firms. At the same time, nearly half of respondents say they feel pressure to generate financial gains from AI, while one-third say their firms have yet to adapt commercial models accordingly. If left unaddressed, these pressures can compound, the paper points out, ultimately threatening a firm’s ability to attract and retain both clients and talent.

Finding your strategic path for AI adoption

Fortunately for those tax & audit professionals who feel overwhelmed by the strictures of advanced technology, the paper identifies three primary strategic paths for AI integration that could fit your firm, including:

• • • Using AI to elevate by leveraging AI to handle routine tasks, freeing professionals to focus on complex, high-value advisory work. Firms adopting this path aim to deepen client relationships and command premium fees that are based on expertise rather than volume.
    • Using AI to scale by focusing on productivity and using AI to increase capacity and consistency without increasing headcount. This path is particularly attractive for managing busy tax seasons and reducing recruitment strain.
    • Using AI to reimagine by rethinking the firm’s entire business model. Instead of periodic compliance, firms provide clients with continuous, proactive support and real-time insights, shifting from a service provider to a strategic partner.

A minority of respondents say their firms are deferring strategic decisions on AI, but the paper warns that any delay carries significant risks, especially as clients and talent expectations increase.

Universal priorities for firm leaders

Regardless of their chosen path, however, the paper outlines four priorities that every firm leader needs to address in order to succeed, including:

1. 1. 1. Govern the tools being used — More than one-third of professionals admit to using unauthorized AI tools, which greatly increases firms’ liability risks. Establishing clear governance, approving secure tools, and providing usage guidance are essential to mitigate these risks.
      2. Clarify the firm’s strategic direction — Firms must articulate their AI ambitions, internally and to clients, even if the path is not yet finalized. Understanding whether the goal is efficiency, expertise, or transformation can help guide decisions on tools, pricing, and hiring.
      3. Align AI with your professionals’ needs — Nearly half of professionals say they value work fulfillment as the primary benefit of AI, and a significant portion say they would consider leaving if their expectations go unmet. Engaging with teams to ensure AI deployment aligns with what they want is critical, whether they want more time, more complex work, or both.
      4. Define the role of early-career professionals — As AI automates more tasks, tax & audit firms must ensure that junior staff still receive the structured development needed to build professional judgment. Ensuring supervision before automation erodes these opportunities is vital for talent success.

As the paper clearly outlines, those tax & audit firm leaders that govern AI effectively, articulate a clear strategy, and invest in their people will be the ones best positioned to succeed in an increasingly AI-driven market.

You can download a full copy of theĚýFuture of Professionals Report 2026: Actionable insights for tax & audit firm leadersĚýpaper here

Key insights:

• • • AI adoption has become an urgent business imperative — Enabling corporate functions are under pressure from leadership, business stakeholders, and employees to demonstrate tangible AI-driven value.

    • Slow AI adoption creates risk — Many professionals are frustrated by limited access to high-quality AI tools, which contributes to increased employee turnover and growing use of unauthorized shadow AI

    • Success depends on coordinated transformation — Organizations need a deliberate AI strategy rather than scattered experimentation to help guide responsible AI adoption across the organization.

Today, internal corporate enabling functions — such as legal, tax, global trade, compliance, and risk — find themselves at a crossroads as they face mounting pressures from three critical fronts: i) internal stakeholders that are demanding faster, more informed decisions; ii) finance departments that are expecting AI-driven efficiency and cost control; and iii) a professional workforce eager for tools that enhance the value of the work they do.

The message from the C-Suite is clear: AI must deliver tangible results now, according to the recent ¶¶ŇőłÉÄęĚý2026 Future of Professionals Report.

To help internal corporate function leaders manage this pressure and move forward with confidence into an AI-enabled future, ¶¶ŇőłÉÄę has published a new action paper, Future of Professionals Report 2026: Actionable insights for corporate leaders, drawing on insights from hundreds of internal corporate professionals.

Facing down the triple pressures

The urgency that corporate function leaders are facing is underscored by those three areas of pressure. For example, almost half of professionals surveyed in enabling functions say they are either already experiencing the financial consequences of lagging AI adoption or are expecting to within a year. Many enabling functions have long been expected to absorb growing workloads without proportional increases in resources. Now, AI is increasingly viewed as a way to expand capacity and improve efficiency, making delaying its adoption a potential source of budgetary and competitive risk.

You can download your copy of theĚý2026 Future of Professionals ReportĚýhere

Stakeholder pressure is equally intense. As many business units accelerate their own AI deployments, they expect the organization’s other enabling functions to keep pace. If these functions become bottlenecks, they risk being sidelined or being perceived as obstacles rather than strategic partners. Indeed, more than half of corporate professionals say they are facing significant pressure from stakeholders to act faster on AI, with in-house legal teams feeling this most acutely.

Yet the pressure coming from the workforce may be the most alarming. The action paper shows that fully 30% of professionals say they are considering leaving their organizations within two years if the gap between the AI-driven value they expect and what is made available to them isn’t addressed. Access to professional-grade AI tools has become a key factor in job decisions, yet nearly 6-in-10 professionals say they lack access. This gap contributes to both retention challenges and the rise of unauthorized AI use, increasing compliance and governance risks.

Choosing the right path

Faced with the reality of these pressures, corporate function leaders must choose a strategic path for AI adoption. The action paper outlines three primary trajectories:

• • • Using AI to elevate by shifting human effort to high-value, judgment-based work.
    • Using AI to scale by leveraging AI to handle increased workloads without increasing headcount while optimizing for efficiency.
    • Using AI to reimagine by rebuilding workflows around AI’s capabilities, such as implementing shared data infrastructure and real-time dashboards.

However, knowing the path is not the same as walking it. The action paper also highlights a potential execution gap, in which a lack of coordination and shared accountability across functions derails any real progress. This is a particular problem for enabling corporate functions because many departments often operate in silos, using different AI tools and standards, which leads to fragmentation and operational bottlenecks.

The solution, as the paper outlines, lies in building a shared framework for AI governance and accountability, with fiduciary functions like legal, tax, and compliance taking the lead. Some critical recommendations outlined in the paper include advocating for professional-grade AI tools, planning for an evolutionary journey through AI adoption, and leading an organization-wide conversation about AI governance and standards.

Finally, the paper encourages corporate leadership teams to step back from daily pressures and engage in structured exercises to define a shared vision for AI within the organization. By developing a long-term roadmap that considers processes, data, technology, people, and risk, corporate leaders can ensure AI adoption delivers both immediate value and sustainable competitive advantage for the future.

You can read a full copy of theĚýFuture of Professionals Report 2026: Actionable insights for corporate leaders paper here

Key insights:

• • • GCs place increased importance on commerciality — Business enablement is becoming the fastest-growing priority for corporate legal general counsel, creating an opportunity for UK law firms to not only provide legal advice, but to help GCs demonstrate business value to their C-Suite.

    • Business savviness serves as a differentiator — When asked why they would select one law firm over another, the proportion of UK GCs mentioning business-savvy saw a marked increase in our latest report, as did the concepts of commerciality, knowledge of the client’s business, and knowledge of the client’s sector.

    • Understanding the business is critical in an AI world — Clients are largely ahead of their outside firms on AI usage and sentiment. As AI automates more routine legal work, successful UK law firms can provide additional value above AI output by translating legal advice into practical business guidance and better commercial outcomes.

The definition of what it means to be a successful law firm in the United Kingdom is expanding. No longer is it enough to simply provide subject matter expertise for clients, with good lawyering becoming table stakes to even be considered for a panel. Neither is it enough to provide this expertise in a cost-saving and time-efficient manner, as clients are increasingly expecting of all firms.

Today, clients are expecting their outside UK law firms to go further into truly understanding the client’s business proposition, according to the recent 2026 State of the UK Legal Market Report from the Thomson Reuters Institute (TRI). And while efficiency and expertise remain top priorities, more corporate general counsel than ever before are rating business savviness and commerciality as key areas of focus. Clearly, GCs don’t just want legal advice from their outside firms, they want positive business outcomes.

Rather than provide an additional imposition on firms, however, forward-thinking law firm leaders in the UK will view this as an opportunity to stand out. Particularly in an AI-driven age in which low-level work continues to be automated, leaning into commerciality can offer lawyers a way to showcase their value while providing the positive business outcomes that clients truly desire.

Increased focus on enabling business processes

Client needs for outside counsel have evolved in recent years, simply because the corporate legal department itself has evolved. Business pressure has demanded that GCs turn their departments into a business enabler, rather than a cost center. And now corporate executives are measuring legal department success on how well it supports the rest of the organization.

Amid this pressure, GCs have seen mixed results. They have instituted a number of changes to their departments in recent years, leading to the development of corporate legal operations teams and an increased focus on success metrics that tie back to the rest of the business. And while 86% of global GCs say they believe their legal department is a significant contributor to organizational objectives, according to TRI interviews, only 17% of C-Suite executives agree. GCs are doing the work, but corporate executives aren’t seeing their preferred results.

In order to close that expectation gap, it’s unsurprising that GCs are doubling down on business enablement at the top of their agenda. When asked about their strategic priorities over the coming year, efficiency remained the primary focus for most GCs. However, business enablement represented the fastest growing priority, doubling its share of mentions to 27% of GCs in our latest research.

The definition of what it means to enable the business varies depending on the GC, of course. Some mentioned the need to enable business initiatives, others mentioned support specifically for M&A activities, while still others pointed to the imperative to meet changing business needs such as business innovation.

As a result, GCs are now increasingly turning their attention towards how their outside law firms can help with business enablement, and in doing so they’re shifting their criteria for choosing outside firms in the UK. When asked what drives favorability when selecting one firm over another, the proportion of GCs mentioning business-savvy rose to 37% in our most recent survey, compared to 31% from the year prior. Diving deeper into more specific sub-themes, the concepts of commerciality, knowledge of the client’s business, and knowledge of the client’s sector all saw increases in the portion of respondents mentioning those factors.

As the report notes, under real pressure to demonstrate their strategic value upwards, GCs are looking for external advisors that can help them meet their commercial goals. Those UK lawyers who want to stand out can begin by not only providing legal advice, but much-desired business advice as well.

The impact of commercial focus

Law firm leadership and partners in the UK have long said that they’re happy as long as their clients are happy. However, what does it mean for clients to truly be happy? That definition has shifted over time, and even has different permutations based on clients’ industry and geographic location.

When measuring their own success, UK general counsel place less emphasis on compliance & risk compared with their global counterparts, and less emphasis on cost & financial outcomes than do GCs based in the United States. Instead, UK GCs are heavily focused on quality & effectiveness, getting to the best outcome possible regardless of what it takes to get there.

UK law firms should be measuring their own success similarly. As the report notes, the ability to understand a client’s industry, strategic priorities, and risk tolerance — and then to translate legal advice into practical guidance for decision-making — has become central to how today’s clients select their outside counsel. Although work is cost-sensitive to a degree, law firms will ultimately be judged on their ability to deliver on high-stakes, bet-the-company matters, in which superior outcomes will outweigh marginal cost savings.

This is particularly true in an AI-centric environment. Previously, law firms were more readily able to compete on price for some low-level, repeatable work. Now, however, that work is increasingly being automated away. Clients are largely ahead of their outside law firms in both AI usage and sentiment towards AI’s impact on the legal industry, the UK report shows.

As the report notes, the ability to understand a client’s industry, strategic priorities, and risk tolerance — and then to translate legal advice into practical guidance for decision-making — has become central to how today’s clients select their outside counsel.

What’s more, corporate legal departments are becoming unafraid to use AI in those situations in which it makes cost-efficient sense with little legal risk. This means that law firms need to stand out not only from one another, but from the output that internal AI tools can provide.

Understanding the client’s business context can help provide this additional value, the report notes. That does not mean every lawyer needs to become a business consultant; but it does mean that firms must embed commercial understanding into the way they advise clients, staff matters, manage relationships, and measure success. Lawyers who can connect legal risk to business consequence will be better positioned to earn client trust, strengthen panel relationships, and demonstrate value in ways that AI tools cannot easily replicate.

As corporate legal departments in the Uk and elsewhere continue on their own path to become business enablers, they will increasingly expect their outside counsel to evolve with them. Those firms that thrive will be those that understand not only the law, but the client’s market, pressures, priorities, and definition of success.

In the UK legal market of 2026 and beyond, commerciality is not simply an added benefit — it is becoming central to what clients believe good lawyering looks like.

You can download a full copy of the Thomson Reuters Institute’s recent 2026 State of the UK Legal Market Report here

• • • Collaboration is the strongest enabler of detection — Financial institutions are most effective at identifying human trafficking when they work closely with NGOs, law enforcement, and regulators, combining financial intelligence with victim-centered and investigative insights.

    • Data, technology, and AI can uncover trafficking networks — By analyzing financial transactions alongside open-source intelligence, social media activity, public records, and specialized datasets, organizations can identify patterns, relationships, and high-risk accounts more efficiently.

    • Financial institutions have a critical role in disrupting trafficking — Because human trafficking depends on moving and laundering illicit profits, banks and other financial institutions can help stop it by detecting suspicious activity, filing targeted reports, and supporting law enforcement investigations.

Human trafficking is not only one of the most devastating financial crimes but also one of the most complex as it cuts across fraud, money laundering, and organized crime, with some crime rings use their existing drug trafficking networks for human trafficking-related crimes.

Financial institutions are in a unique position to help battle this scourge as they can see the financial flows generated from human trafficking and sexual exploitation. Without the ability to launder the proceeds, human trafficking as a crime would lose some of its appeal.

To understand this better, a multi-city initiative around the FIFA World Cup, co-led by ¶¶ŇőłÉÄę and , brought in leaders from financial institutions, law enforcement, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), regulators, and corporate risk departments to address human trafficking from a financial crime perspective.

Indeed, as research shows, forced labor in the private economy generates as much as $236 billion in , according to the International Labour Organization. If financial institutions can identify the proceeds of traffickers and their patterns, however, they can close suspected accounts, file prioritized suspicious activity reports, and notify law enforcement to help put a quicker end to this terrible problem.

The use of data and technology

Unfortunately, financial institutions often lack the context and the data points to act with certainty. These data points often include the names of victims, their behaviors, and their relationships with traffickers and can provide important clues about the origins and methods of human trafficking, including locations and transportation patterns. NGOs can help in this area; and such NGOs as the and already are providing critical, victim-centered insight.

In addition, NGOs often build datasets and proprietary content on their own to uncover trafficking. , for example, maintains a large, proprietary dataset that’s built from network metadata and behavioral signals collected from publicly accessible online environments. This data is then analyzed into real‑time intelligence, such as risk scores and activity patterns, which helps law enforcement identify and prioritize suspected child exploitation offenders.

Traffickers use social media platforms, online ads, and messaging apps to recruit victims and to advertise illicit services, often leave a digital footprint that can be analyzed, which enables law enforcement and analysts to identify victims, map relationships between illicit actors, detect recruitment patterns, identify locations, and uncover entire trafficking networks.

Other relevant information sources include the Illicit Massage Business (IMB) database from ¶¶ŇőłÉÄę Special Services, which includes business accounts, the location, and the owner of every massage parlor in the US, in which trafficking victims are forced to operate.

Because traffickers use social media platforms, online ads, and messaging apps to recruit victims and to advertise illicit services, they often leave a digital footprint that can be analyzed. This enables law enforcement and analysts to identify victims, map relationships between illicit actors, detect recruitment patterns, identify locations, and uncover entire trafficking networks. This information can then be enhanced by combining it with public records and data from the open web, deep web, and dark web.

Learning the lessons of collaboration

As we at the ACAMS–¶¶ŇőłÉÄę Human Trafficking Initiative looked back at the lessons learned and reviewed best practices, we can see that any success in identifying illicit trafficking accounts is based on three factors: i) close cooperation with law enforcement and NGOs; ii) specialized investigative resources with human trafficking backgrounds; and iii) the use of data and open-source intelligence, either standalone or integrated into monitoring workflows.

Financial institutions understand their role and the need to obtain specialized data and expertise; and leveraging these capabilities typically results in the termination or de-risking of suspicious accounts.

Because collaboration with law enforcement is not consistent across financial institutions, particularly in the US, this means that overall, there’s a very uneven focus on human trafficking detection and prevention, depending on the availability of resources and the level of collaboration.

The role of regulators, like the U.S. Treasury Department’s , is crucial because these entities can leverage AI to act even more rapidly and connect information quicker, which can help disrupt human trafficking more effectively. Investigators are instructed to make a specific selection, field 38(h), when filing a report and include a specific reference to human trafficking. This will allow FinCEN to analyze and identify patterns, trends, and trafficking networks by linking these reports together.

In that context financial institutions have another reason to embrace AI within their customer data. By analyzing transactions and other patterns of risk using all available data sources and building agentic capabilities and workflows within their own customer data, financial institutions will be able to better identify high-risk accounts without carrying out labor-intensive investigations.

While this event series focused on the 2026 World Cup, human trafficking existed long before the tournament and will not stop once it concludes. However, if NGOs, authorities, and financial institutions can significantly improve their ability to detect and disrupt it, that would represent a major step forward.

You can find out more about how law enforcement and others are disrupting human trafficking networks here

Key insights:

• • • Successful AI implementation requires a solid foundation — Strategy, leadership, and the impact on operations and individual users are key elements to any successful implementation.

    • AI success is a skills strategy, not a technology strategy — AI creates a whole new set of skills that are required for both legal department attorneys and department leadership.

    • AI changes how legal work is conducted — If implemented correctly, AI not only improves the end work product, but it also changes how lawyers perform their jobs.

Corporate legal departments are already experiencing the benefits of AI, including improved productivity, and reduced costs and errors, the Thomson Reuters Institute’s recent shows. So it’s not surprising that AI is increasingly becoming a strategic priority for general counsel (GCs).

The report cautioned, however, that success with AI is not a given. AI is not a silver bullet which guarantees improvements across the department. Instead, AI adoption and implementation must be carefully planned in order to realize those benefits.

Crucially, successful AI implementation is not simply about the technology; rather, it’s a reflection of the department itself and often can signal whether the department has the right elements in place to enable that success.

AI enhances successful legal departments — it does not create them

AI implementation is like any other law department strategy — it does not live on its own but instead advances as a direct result of everything that has come before it, including the work of the department’s attorneys and professionals, its daily operations and processes, and the GCs who are guiding the overall vision.

Overall, it’s about having a solid foundation upon which to build AI adoption and implementation.

The Pyramid of AI Success

AI may be one of the most impactful and transformational technologies to come on the scene in recent years, but it’s important to remember that it is still simply one tool among many. And its ultimate success will be determined not only by its capabilities, but by how it integrates with and augments the work that corporate legal department attorneys perform daily.

The technology itself does not perform the work — it enables more efficient work. This means that the rise of AI creates a whole new set of necessary skills for both legal department attorneys and department leadership.

With that in mind, GCs should focus on a few key areas to improve their department’s chances of AI success. The essential steps can be viewed as a pyramid — every step that you take builds, each upon another, creating a solid foundation. Establishing a top-level AI strategy means setting the tone from leadership, which then permeates down through operations and ultimately transforms how individual users work every day.

• • Learning — Most departments have a basic AI understanding and a culture to encourage change, but they often do not have the depth of understanding to move from AI literacy to AI fluency. Be sure to determine where your team is on this learning curve.
  • Empowerment — Empowering your professionals is crucial to drive experimentation and identify new use cases. Ask yourself, does my team feel encouraged to explore new ways of working and empowered to make changes?
  • Ownership — The legal team should feel they have significant input into how AI will be used in the department and throughout the organization. AI can be a major transition, and team members should feel that they can freely share ideas, concerns, and insights.
  • Accountability — Team members with personal goals that are linked to AI adoption are more likely to become top learners and regular users, our research shows, and this leads to greater overall benefits for the department.
  • Usage — Regular use drives adoption, so you should build AI into your team’s daily habits, monitor how many legal team members have tried AI, and how many are using it regularly.
  • Expectations — Balance encouraging uptake with clear expectations around adoption. Offering open encouragement along with access to tools and training to build momentum can be key first steps. As team members become more proficient, set formal expectations around AI usage. Be clear that when targets are set, usage will be tracked and individuals will be held accountable. Then, follow up with low- or no-usage individuals to determine causes, such as difficulty with training.

For GCs, today’s top challenge is how the department can develop needed AI skills in a way that will best augment how lawyers work. If implemented correctly, AI will not only improve the end work product, but it will also better enable lawyers to perform the work they do best.

AI success with outside counsel

The same principles of strategy and leadership that contribute to AI success within the department also extend to working with outside counsel. Currently, more than half of corporate counsel say they believe their outside law firms should be using AI, according to the report; however, two-thirds also say they do not know how their outside firms are approaching their use of AI.

This creates a communication gap, in which some GCs attribute to hesitance or caution. “We do not ask and they are shy to provide answers because they are already under a lot of pressure because their rates are so high,” reports one GC.

About three-quarters of corporate counsel also say they expect their outside law firms to take the lead in AI conversations between the department and the firm. However, that does not mean that GCs should simply accept a lack of conversation if firms are not forthcoming. Those GCs that want their outside firms to embrace AI should be open and transparent, conveying that they believe AI can assist firms with most work tasks, while placing a strong emphasis on output verification and the authority of attorney expertise. Indeed, GCs need to understand how their outside firms are using AI, especially how and when it is being applied, how it’s being supervised, and, perhaps most importantly, how it impacts fees.

Without detailed and regular discussions, GCs could develop a blind spot in this area. “Conversation has been only high level,” another GC explains. “We generally know what AI they are using but not how they are using it.” What’s surprising, the GC adds, is that “the billing has remained the same as it did before — so either they are not using AI tools efficiently, or they are just doing double work.”

You can download a fully copy of the , from the Thomson Reuters Institute here

Key highlights:

• • The AI strategy-execution gap is an organizational problem, not a tech one — Among professionals whose firm or department has a stated AI strategy, more than half say that either the strategy is not visible on a daily basis or that the organization has no strategic AI direction at all.

  • The human cost of inaction is building faster than most leaders recognize — More than 90% of professionals say they are experiencing some degree of this AI-value disconnect, and among them, one quarter is considering leaving their current organization within two years if things don’t change — at an estimated replacement cost of $232,000 per employee.

  • Disrupted development compounds talent risk for the next generation — The flight risk of experienced professionals creates a compounding multiplier effect on the ability of entry-level talent to develop critical skills.

The greatest barrier to AI transformation in professional services is the widening human gap between what organizations promise their people about AI and the spoken and unspoken messages that professionals see and observe in their workplace every day, according to the ¶¶ŇőłÉÄę recent , which surveyed more than 1,800 professionals in 62 countries across areas of law, tax, audit, accounting, compliance, risk, and global trade.

Establishing a visible AI strategy

While our research showed that most organizations have a stated AI strategy, the data suggests that it is not translating evenly to employees in their day-to-day work. Among professionals whose firm or department has a formal AI strategy, 35% say that strategy is not visible in their day-to-day experience, and another 17% say their organization has no strategic direction on AI at all. That means that more than half of professionals with fiduciary commitments are working in an environment in which the AI strategy on paper does not match the reality of how their work gets done.

The reasons that professionals say AI strategies are stalling suggest an absence in AI transformation and change agility across the organization. Indeed, professionals say that drivers of their organizations’ struggles to translate AI ambition into measurable results include the fact that the right tools are not yet in place (with 47% of respondents saying this), people are not equipped or trained to work in the intended way (43%), the strategy has not been translated into clear operational priorities (32%), and there is no shared understanding of the AI strategy across the organization (30%).

When strategic clarity around AI exists, it translates into more visible value. In fact, more than two-thirds of professionals in firms and departments with a stated strategy say AI is meeting or exceeding expectations for creating value at work. When there is no understandable AI strategy, less than one-quarter say this.

The quiet accumulation of human costs

The talent consequences of the gap between stated AI strategy and its daily execution are building faster than most leaders recognize. More than 90% of professionals say they are experiencing this gap to some degree. Among them, 1-in-4 is considering leaving their current organization within the next two years if things don’t change. This can result in an estimated replacement cost of $232,000 per employee, which means the quantifiable financial outlay of this talent flight can add up quickly.

The greatest vulnerability of flight risk sits with mid-career professionals, who often are the most embedded AI users, the most influential in day-to-day operations, and the most impatient with slow adoption. Almost 30% of these professionals would change jobs within two years if AI fails to deliver the value they expect, and 14% say they are considering leaving within the next 12 months.

Of course, the financial risks extend beyond mid-career professionals and could in fact disrupt a generation of early career talent. When experienced professionals leave, they take with them the mentorship and oversight upon which the development of early-career employees depends.

The report shows that 71% of professionals say they believe early-career roles need structured support from experienced peers to develop the skills that are at risk of being displaced by AI. Moreover, nearly half say they are concerned about AI’s impact on the development of independent judgment and learning through experience. In fact, legal professionals specifically say they expect the timeline for early-career lawyers to develop a level of trusted judgment could be stretched by nearly two years.

Taken together, these factors create a compounding multiplier effect that will almost certainly have a negative impact on organizational performance in the near future, the report suggests.

Recommended actions for employers and professionals

The Future of Professionals Report 2026 details three distinct paths for how organizations can deploy AI:

1. 1. 1. Elevate, which allows AI to handle rote tasks while keeping human expertise at the center;
      2. Scale, which uses AI primarily to increase capacity without increasing headcount; and
      3. Reimagine, which puts AI at the core as it rebuilds operating models and service propositions from the ground up.

The data also makes clear that the organizational and human costs of inaction are multifaceted. There are several concrete steps that both employers and professionals can take now, as outlined in the report, which include:

For employers:

• • • Choose a path and make it visible — The aforementioned three paths represent genuinely different futures with different commercial models, talent strategies, and definitions of professional value. Organizations must choose one deliberately and make it easily visible at the individual and leadership levels.
    • Close the rift in alignment before it results in talent departure —ĚýMore than one-third of professionals say they are working somewhere where the AI approach does not match their preference. These professionals are almost twice as likely to consider leaving within the next 12 months — and organizational leaders need to be aware of that.
    • Let strategy drive investmentsĚý— Professionals working in organizations with a stated AI strategy are 3-times more likely to say AI is meeting or exceeding expectations for creating value at work compared to those at organizations without a stated AI strategy. This makes the value of establishing a stated AI strategy and ensuring its visible on a daily basis, a clear step for organizational leadership.

For professionals:

• • • Know which future you are working towardĚý— Almost all professionals say they can see a future in one of the three paths. Understanding which one fits you is the first step to having a productive conversation about where the inconsistency is between your preference and your organization’s direction.
    • Invest in judgment as well as AI tool fluencyĚý— Judgment will always be a human differentiator in regard to AI, and the judgment that professionals apply on top of AI competency is what builds lasting professional value.

Professionals and organizational leaders need to make decisions in regard to their relationship with AI — and these decisions will determine the future of professional services. Those employers and professionals that choose their path deliberately, work to ensure alignment between strategy and experience, and invest in human judgment as seriously as they invest in technology will be the ones that can turn AI’s promise into a competitive advantage that compounds over time.

You can explore the fullĚý

Key insights:

• • • Sect. 301 and IEEPA tariffs operate on fundamentally different legal foundations — The IEEPA tariffs flow from an executive emergency declaration that can be unwound overnight, while Sect. 301 findings are built on a formal evidentiary record that can survive numerous administrations.

    • Those manufacturers that diversified away from China now face compounded exposure — The countries to which many manufactured moved their trade operations — including Vietnam, India, Bangladesh, and Malaysia — are now named in the recent Sect. 301 action.

    • Managing this complexity without purpose-built tools is no longer realistic — The need for access to quality vendor data, tariff classifications, country-of-origin mapping, and duty layering requires systems that can be updated continuously, not spreadsheets that are reviewed quarterly.

Since early 2025, manufacturers have lived in a tariff environment defined by volatility that’s been dictated seemingly at the whim of the United States. Rates announced one week were paused the next, country-specific deals emerged from diplomatic calls, and 90-day exemptions became the operating rhythm. For supply chain teams, the rational response was to treat every new tariff as provisional — something to monitor, not necessarily something to plan around.

That logic does not apply to the of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR), underĚýSection 301 of the Trade Act of 1974Ěýthat a list of 60 economies — comprising the largest US trading partners — had failed to enforce a ban on goods produced with forced laborĚýare therefore wereĚýrestrictive to US trade.

To understand why, it actually requires and how it compares to the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), which the Trump Administration had used as its authority behind the 2025 reciprocal tariffs until that was disallowed .

Unlike the IEEPA, Sect. 301 is not an executive power that turns on or off depending on when a national emergency is declared. Rather, it is a statutory framework that requires the USTR to conduct a formal investigation, gather evidence, hold public hearings, and build a record before making an actionability determination. In the June 2 action alone, the USTR received testimony from nearly 60 witnesses and almost 500 public comments before issuing its findings.

That record matters, because it is what makes tariffs issued in response to Sect. 301 findings structurally resistant to reversal. Unwinding them requires either a new formal determination, a negotiated bilateral resolution in which the trading partner actually changes its practices, or Congressional action. A new administration cannot simply issue a presidential order lifting them because the legal bar is categorically higher.

And this distinction is no longer theoretical. After the Supreme Court ruled his tariffs invalid, President Trump immediately pivoting to Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974, which permits a temporary global surcharge of up to 15% for no more than 150 days. That took effect February 24, and is set to expire July 24, unless extended by Congress. Tariffs imposed because of the June 2 Sect. 301 findings were never exposed to the same legal vulnerability and is now the administration’s primary vehicle for building durable tariff authority.

There is also a political dimension that compounds the durability. The June 2 findings are grounded specifically the failure of the named economies to prohibit the importation of goods made with forced labor. That framing carries broad bipartisan support in Washington, and neither party is positioned to argue against forced labor prohibitions, which means the political incentive to reverse these tariffs is far weaker than it was for the IEEPA-based tariffs.

The compounded exposure problem

For manufacturers that spent 2024 and 2025 diversifying their supply chains away from the tariff-heavy China, the June 2 findings create a specific and uncomfortable problem. The most common destinations for that diversification — Vietnam, Bangladesh, India, Malaysia, Thailand, and Indonesia — are all named in USTR’s recent action. Proposed additional duties of 10% to 12.5% would layer on top of existing duties and any Sect. 122 tariffs still in place during the transition period.

In other words, the move that looked like risk mitigation then may now carry its own tariff exposure now — and unlike the situation in 2025, there is no obvious alternative jurisdiction.

That means vendor management systems that integrate tariff data in real time — pulling current duty rates by code, flagging country-of-origin changes, modeling landed cost across multiple sourcing scenarios — are no longer a competitive advantage. Now they are a baseline operational requirement. The same applies to supplier compliance documentation. As forced labor attestations become relevant to exclusion eligibility under Sect. 301, having those records organized, current, and accessible is not an audit-readiness question, rather, it’s a cost-of-goods question.

Then, the practical challenge for manufacturers becomes an operational one, not just a strategic one. Tracking tariff exposure across dozens of suppliers, multiple countries of origin, layered duty structures, and evolving classification rules is not a task that can be easily scaled with traditional tools. For example, in the 24 hours following the Supreme Court’s tariff ruling, the US terminated one tariff regime, enacted a replacement under a different statute, and announced the launch of multiple new Sect. 301 investigations. A manufacturer’s spreadsheet that’s updated monthly cannot keep pace with a regulatory environment moving at that speed.

The durable lesson

The IEEPA tariff experience trained supply chain teams to stay nimble — and then demonstrated exactly how fragile executive-action tariffs can be when the Supreme Court invalidated them. That instinct toward flexibility still has value, of course; however, the Sect. 301 framework requires a parallel capability that requires manufacturers to recognize when a tariff is structural, model its long-term cost impact, and adapt sourcing and vendor strategies accordingly.

These new Sect. 301-based tariffs are not a negotiating position waiting to be resolved. They are a legal determination, built on a formal record, grounded in a cause — the elimination of forced labor from global supply chains — that has strong consensus across the political spectrum.

Those manufacturers that plan around them as permanent while investing in the tools to manage that complexity in real time will be better positioned than those waiting for the next exemption announcement.

You can find out more about how tariffs continue to impact global trade here

Key insights:

• • • Financial institutions on the frontlines of trafficking prevention — As the 2026 World Cup continues, it puts financial institutions on the frontlines of detection and prevention of human trafficking, whether they are in a host city or not.

    • US government has offered guidance — FinCEN’s updated Section 314(b) guidance, issued June 12, gives institutions explicit authority to share fraud and trafficking-related information with each other, and strongly encourages them to do so.

    • Cross-sector collaboration is essential — Organizations like The Knoble are building the cross-sector collaboration infrastructure that makes that kind of information sharing operational, not just theoretical.

The 2026 FIFA World Cup is, by every measure, the largest sporting event ever staged on North American soil, drawing 3.6 million spectators through its early weeks and generating billions of dollars in economic activity — that level of transaction volume that would strain any risk & compliance team on its best day.

The World Cup and its millions of international visitors also are creating the very conditions that human traffickers are always eager to exploit.

It is a pattern that researchers, law enforcement, and financial crime professionals have documented around major global events for years. And it is precisely why, as the World Cup enters its most dramatic final weeks, compliance teams at financial institutions of every size are treating this moment as the operational inflection point it is.

The World Cup as a financial ecosystem

Most people associate the World Cup with soccer and international competition; yet for compliance professionals, it also represents a full financial ecosystem of its own that they have to navigate.

Julie Conroy, a leader at , a nonprofit founded in 2019 to bring together financial services and law enforcement to combat human trafficking, financial scams, elder financial exploitation, and child sexual exploitation, is direct about threat compliance teams face. “All of these big, massive global events bring together lots of people,” Conroy says. “And that makes it very easy for the criminals… to hide their human trafficking.”

Of course, the financial footprint of that activity runs through the banking system, through peer-to-peer transfers, prepaid card activity, late-night ATM withdrawals, unusual hotel charges, or vague payment memos reading “services” or “personal care.” None of these transactions are inherently suspicious in isolation; yet together, as a pattern layered across time and accounts, they can signal exploitation in real time.

FinCEN’s recent guidance changed the calculus

On June 12, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) issued clarifying how financial institutions can share information with one another about suspected fraud, money laundering, and other financial crimes under Section 314(b) of the USA PATRIOT Act.

The World Cup and its millions of international visitors also are creating the very conditions that human traffickers are always eager to exploit.

The guidance is both a clarification and a signal. It explicitly confirms that institutions may share information about suspected trafficking-related activity with any other financial institution eligible to participate in the 314(b) program. It broadens the categories of shareable information to include video surveillance footage, cyber-related data such as IP addresses, and behavioral fraud indicators such as newly added payees followed by large transfers, multiple accounts with similar identifying information, and login activity from geographically distant locations.

framed the urgency plainly: “Financial institutions are often the first to see suspicious activity in real time. They need the tools to act quickly and share information that can help stop fraud before it spreads.”

For human trafficking detection specifically, this matters because no single institution sees a complete trafficking network. One bank might observe the late-night ATM pattern, another might flag the prepaid card activity, and a third might notice the unusual payroll behavior of a temporary staffing company supplying event workers. Individually, those fragments are insufficient; however, when shared, they become actionable intelligence.

“Now we can share data among ourselves for fraud prevention purposes — which is amazing,” Conroy notes.

The collaboration infrastructure already exists

The regulatory green light from FinCEN is necessary but not sufficient on its own. Effective information-sharing requires relationships, operational frameworks, and trust that take time to build. That is the gap The Knoble was created to close.

The organization has spent six years building the bridges between financial institutions and law enforcement that make inter-agency collaboration real rather than aspirational. That work is harder than it sounds due to personnel changes and departments that operate in silos. The Knoble’s member network is designed to outlast those structural challenges by creating a durable community of practice around financial crime detection.

“The amazing thing that The Knoble has been able to do is bring together banks and law enforcement, build those bridges between the two of them, and give a guide to banks about what are the red flags,” Conroy explains.

, which was developed in anticipation of the tournament, reinforces what FinCEN’s guidance also makes clear: Trafficking rarely presents itself through a single dramatic transaction. Investigators need to identify clusters of behavior across time, look at shared devices and phone numbers, and track rapid movement of funds across accounts. The behavioral anomaly, not the individual transaction, is the signal.

Every suspicious activity report filed, every bit of information shared, and every frontline employee who escalates an unusual interaction contributes to an intelligence picture that law enforcement can act on immediately, while victims are still at risk.

However, perhaps the most consequential misconception in AML and fraud around the World Cup right now is that human trafficking is a host-city problem.

Trafficking networks are geographically distributed by design. Victims may be recruited in one state, transported to and exploited in a host city, and their proceeds moved through financial institutions located elsewhere. That means that a regional bank in Kansas City or a credit union in a midsize market with no World Cup connection can still observe funnel account activity, unusual prepaid card funding, or suspicious peer-to-peer transfers tied to a network operating hundreds of miles away.

Training is not optional

FinCEN’s guidance also makes clear that transaction monitoring systems cannot address trafficking issues alone — a financial institution’s frontline staff matter.

Tellers, branch employees, and customer service representatives are often in a position to observe indicators that never appear in an alert queue. A customer who appears fearful, cannot speak freely, or gives answers that seem scripted. These behavioral signals and more require trained human observation.

That’s why these frontline professionals are so important. Every suspicious activity report filed, every bit of information shared, and every frontline employee who escalates an unusual interaction contributes to an intelligence picture that law enforcement can act on immediately, while victims are still at risk. This is critical, because human trafficking is happening in real time, and the transactions that compliance teams are observing are occurring while the exploitation is ongoing.

Conroy frames The Knoble’s mission in exactly these terms. The organization exists to take financial professionals who are already passionate about stopping human trafficking and other crimes and mobilize them within their day-to-day work.

Now, as the World Cup enters its final weeks, the question now is whether compliance teams will continue to treat this moment as an operational priority by using the collaboration tools and the regulatory guidance at their disposal to make a crucial difference in the lives of trafficking victims.

For more on this, tune into the Thomson Reuters Institute’s recent “Clarity” podcastĚý