Practice Management
Best for workflow-heavy firms scaling past 25 staff
Karbon, reviewed honestly
A practical operator-grade review of Karbon as a practice management spine for growing accounting and advisory firms in 2026.
Read the review
AI & Automation
AI tooling in the firm, honestly assessed
Worth piloting in narrow, high-volume processes
A field review of where AI tooling is actually earning its place inside accounting and advisory firms in 2026 — and where it is still mostly noise.
Practice Insider
Verdict
The short answer
AI tooling is doing real work inside well-run firms in 2026 — but almost none of that work looks like the marketing. The wins are narrow, operational, and quietly compounding. The losses are loud, broad, and almost always rolled out without a clear use case.
Good for
- Document classification and data extraction at volume.
- Drafting first passes of standardised client communications.
- Internal knowledge retrieval against the firm's own materials.
Where it falls short
- Anything requiring genuine professional judgement still needs a human.
- Broad 'AI for the firm' rollouts without a defined process to improve.
- Tools sold as autonomous agents in regulated workflows.
Who it suits
Operators willing to scope AI to one or two specific, measurable processes, run it for a quarter, and decide on evidence rather than enthusiasm.
There is more noise around AI tooling in the profession than around any other category of software in a decade. Cutting through it requires the same discipline operators apply to any other tooling decision: define the process, define the measure, and run a real pilot.
Where it is actually working
Document workflows, structured data extraction, internal knowledge retrieval, and first-draft client communications are the four areas where serious firms are quietly seeing returns. Each is narrow, each is measurable, and each compounds when run consistently.
“We stopped trying to do AI. We started trying to fix one process at a time. That is when it began to work.”
Operator take
The firms getting value here are not the ones with the most ambitious AI strategies. They are the ones who picked one painful, repetitive process, applied AI narrowly, measured the result, and then moved to the next one. Boring, sequenced, and effective.
More reviews
Continue reviewing
Document & Workflow
Worth considering for assurance-heavy and PBC-heavy teams
Suralink as the client document layer
Reviewing Suralink as a dedicated client document and PBC workflow tool — and where it sits next to a broader practice management spine.
Read the review
CRM & Comms
Best for firms standardising proposals and recurring billing
Ignition for proposals and engagement letters
An operator's view of Ignition as a proposal, engagement letter, and recurring billing layer for modern firms.
Read the review
Subscribe
One considered email. Read by the people building the next generation of firms.
Join firm operators receiving Practice Insider's editions on insight, reviews, and upcoming events.
Or visit the subscribe page.