AI Use Doubled in Professional Services. Clients Now Expect It.

Thomson Reuters published its fourth annual AI in Professional Services report on 7 April, surveying more than 1,500 professionals across legal, tax, accounting, and advisory. The headline: 40% of firms now use generative AI in their workflows, up from 22% a year ago. Nearly doubled in twelve months. Among those using it, more than 80% engage with AI tools at least weekly.

The pace is striking. In the 2024 edition, only 9% of firms reported implementing AI-enabled tools. By 2025, that had risen to 22%. Now 40%. Nearly a third of tax and accounting professionals say they use AI for work-related tasks every day. What was experimental two years ago is becoming standard operating procedure.

That leaves 19% of firms with no plans to adopt. For them, the pressure isn’t coming from inside the firm. It’s coming from their clients.

The most underreported finding in the Thomson Reuters data: two-thirds of corporate respondents say they want their professional services firms using AI. Fewer than 20% mandate it — but the expectation is real and growing. Clients aren’t asking because they follow AI trends. They’re asking because they’ve started using AI themselves, and they can see the gap between what they get from their own tools and what they’re paying their firms to do manually.

For accounting firms, law practices, and advisory businesses, this is a shift in the client relationship. The question isn’t whether you’re interested in AI. It’s whether your clients believe you’re keeping pace. This is fundamentally a revenue capture problem — the firm that can show how AI improves their service wins the work.

We’ve covered the Australian data before — law firms here trail global peers on daily AI use by a factor of three, and most accounting firms that have adopted AI can’t yet quantify what it’s saving them. This new global data shows the pace of change that’s heading their way.

The report surfaces a term more firms need to understand: agentic AI. Unlike the generative AI most firms have adopted — where you ask a tool to draft a document or summarise research — agentic AI works autonomously. It monitors regulatory changes and updates your compliance workflows. It classifies incoming documents and routes them without being asked. It identifies patterns across your client base and flags opportunities before you see them.

Only 15% of firms currently use agentic AI, according to the report. But 53% are actively planning or considering it. By 2030, 77% expect it to be central to how they work. EY has already rolled out agentic AI across 130,000 assurance professionals globally. Closer to home, MYOB and Xero — the platforms most Australian SME accountants use daily — are both building what they call ‘AI teammates’ and ‘AI superagents’ into their products. We wrote recently about both platforms signing major AI partnerships in the same month. The infrastructure for this shift is already arriving in the tools you use.

If you’re among the 40% already using generative AI, the next step is measuring it. Only 18% of firms in the Thomson Reuters survey track AI ROI — and 40% don’t even know whether their organisation measures it. The firms that can show a client ‘we used AI to cut your compliance review from 12 hours to 3’ have a pricing advantage and a trust advantage over those who can’t.

If you haven’t started, the window to be early is closing. The tools are inside the platforms you already pay for — your practice management software, your document system, your accounting stack. Start with one workflow where AI saves measurable time and track the result. Then tell your clients about it. They want to hear it.

For small and mid-sized firms in Australia, the opportunity isn’t about matching what the Big Four do with AI. It’s about being the local firm that can answer the question: ‘How does AI make your service better for me?’ If you can’t answer it yet, start building the answer now.

Key takeaways

Ready to show your clients how AI fits into your practice?

We help professional services firms assess their AI readiness and build a practical adoption plan. Book a call to find out where you stand.