How AI can accelerate career progression

Cathy Rowe is senior vice president and segment leader, US Professional Market, Wolters Kluwer Tax & Accounting North America.

Accounting firms that embrace AI will win the war for top talent

AI has the potential to accelerate career trajectories in real time. Nowhere is that clearer than in accounting, a profession where a years-long talent drought has already pushed firms to rethink how work gets done.

The promise of AI is no longer theoretical. According to Wolters Kluwer’s 2025 Future Ready Accountant report, 44% of accounting firms have adopted AI tools in the past three years, and 77% plan to increase their AI investments over the next three years. What’s emerging isn’t just a productivity story, it’s also a profound leadership test — one that will determine which firms attract and retain top talent and which fall further behind.

Firm leaders who want to win the war for talent must embrace AI not only as a technological advantage, but as a catalyst for change in how careers are built and advanced. That means being comfortable with something that can feel unfamiliar: today’s accountants will move faster, take responsibility earlier, and progress along steeper career paths than previous generations ever thought possible.

A profession at an inflection point

The accounting profession is facing a perfect storm: a wave of retirements, fewer students entering the pipeline, rising regulatory complexity, and compensation that (at many firms) hasn’t kept pace with the demands of the role. Layer on high burnout driven by long hours and relentless compliance pressure, and these forces are draining the talent pool just as businesses need accounting expertise more than ever.

Meanwhile, the technology gap between leading firms and laggards is widening. Our report shows that high growth firms are already 38% more likely to be fully cloud-based, 53% more likely to have highly integrated systems, and 21% more likely to use AI daily. These firms aren’t just technologically ahead. They’re structurally better positioned to offer modern, flexible, and scalable career environments that future-ready talent increasingly expects.

Career progression can accelerate with AI

As AI increasingly takes on the manual, time-consuming tasks that once defined the early (and often middle) stages of accounting careers, junior professionals now have far greater opportunity to step into higher value roles, far sooner than previous generations.

As AI rapidly absorbs the low-value, repetitive tasks that once dominated entry-level jobs—data entry, document sorting, reconciliations, basic testing, workpaper preparation, and even first-pass tax returns — it’s freeing up billable hours for higher-value analytical and advisory work. And that’s exactly the kind of work that attracts, retains and engages ambitious talent and clients alike.

For firm leaders, however, fully embracing this acceleration requires a mindset shift. Career ladders designed around years of task repetition no longer make sense in a world where AI agents handle the basics. Leaders who cling to legacy “dues paying” models risk losing their best people to firms that offer opportunities for faster growth, richer learning, and more meaningful contributions.

Redefine the profession — and the employee experience

This shift matters even more as workplace expectations evolve. Early- and increasingly, middle-career professionals are clear about what they want: flexibility, remote work options, and modern tools that help them do their jobs well. Historically, accounting has lagged in meeting those expectations.

AI, especially when coupled with integrated tech stacks and cloud-based system architecture, can change that equation. Firms with regular AI use report tangible benefits: 73% say it has already improved client service, decision-making, and efficiency, according to our report. AI isn’t only increasing speed and accuracy. It’s freeing professionals to focus on insight, collaboration, and impact.

Just as importantly, the effective deployment of AI has the potential to reshape the narrative around the profession itself. Long‑standing perceptions that accounting is rigid, outdated, or inherently boring are giving way to a new reality, one where accountants, even early in their careers, serve as strategic advisors, interpreters of complex data, and trusted business partners.

Advisory reimagined:  How firms deliver proactive defensible guidance at scale

Leadership in an accelerated era

Firm leaders play a critical role in translating this shift into lasting advantage. Those who succeed will recognize that AI’s productivity gains can’t be fully unlocked without also empowering people. Leaders who want to intentionally redesign the way they develop talent, to ensure that human capacity can scale alongside machine efficiency, should start with these four priorities.

• Champion adaptability: Normalize change and clearly position AI as both an enabler of better work and a career accelerator, not a threat to professional relevance.
• Front-load exposure: Mentor early career talent to help them develop skills related to judgment, ethics, strategic thinking, and advisory work. Bring them into client-facing conversations sooner. These capabilities can’t be learned in isolation. They’re built through real world exposure, which in an AI accelerated environment must now be designed deliberately, not left to chance.
• Redesign career pathways: Build structured opportunities for junior staff to engage in advisory and decision-making work earlier than traditional models allow. As clients increasingly expect proactive guidance, not just compliance, firms must intentionally train the next generation to deliver the advisory insight those relationships now demand.
• Bridge tech and trust: Ensure AI adoption aligns with compliance standards, ethical responsibilities, and client expectations. Embed clear, human-in-the-loop review into the firm’s workflow, so professional judgment remains central to accountability and final decision-making.

AI that holds up under review:  Building defensible intelligence into firm workflows

The fastest path forward

It’s natural for seasoned leaders to feel a twinge of discomfort when younger professionals bypass the routine, task-heavy work that once defined early careers. But resisting this shift is a losing strategy. The data is clear: Firms that embrace modern, integrated, AI-enabled ways of working are already outpacing their peers when it comes to growth. They’ll soon be winning the war for talent, too.

Future-proof leaders will realize that their hard-earned experience has never been more valuable, just in new ways. They will recognize that accelerating the next generation’s growth doesn’t diminish their own journey; it amplifies their impact. The sooner they embrace AI, let go of outdated career expectations, and help others move faster, the stronger their firms will be, and the faster their own leadership trajectory will rise.

More from Cathy Rowe:  6 strategies for helping accounting firms keep up with agentic AI

This article first appeared in Fast Company.