Transforming tax & accounting: Elevating the client experience with AI

Why is this opportunity becoming more important now?

Three pressures are converging. Clients increasingly expect timely, personalized, and strategic guidance. Firms are managing persistent capacity and talent constraints. And AI is becoming more capable of organizing information and supporting work within the systems professionals already use.

Together, these pressures create an opportunity to improve both capacity and client service. If professionals spend less time gathering documents, reconciling information, managing handoffs and moving work from one step to the next, they can spend more time reviewing exceptions, interpreting results, and engaging clients. The goal is not simply to make existing work faster. It is to make room for the work clients value most.

This is also why firms should be deliberate about adoption of technology. A new tool does not automatically create better client experiences. Clients feel the difference only when relevant information reaches the professional at the right moment, and the firm can

respond with greater speed, consistency, and context. Readiness comes from aligning the technology with the information, professional standards and service model that determine how the firm delivers value.

What makes a firm ready to deliver that experience?

Readiness is practical. It can be assessed across four connected areas:

• Information readiness. Can professionals readily access relevant client, tax and engagement information without repeatedly searching across disconnected systems? Is that information current, usable, and governed appropriately?

• Workflow readiness. Does routine work move consistently from intake through preparation, review and delivery, with clear exceptions and review points?
  
  
• People readiness. Can professionals review AI-assisted work, trace conclusions to authoritative sources, recognize when escalation is needed, and explain the result to a client?
  
  
• Service readiness. Has the firm identified the moments when clients would benefit from faster answers, earlier outreach, more consistent guidance or a more proactive advisory conversation?

These foundations reinforce one another. Connected information gives AI useful context. Embedded workflows make that context available at the right point in the work. Expert oversight protects quality and trust. A clear service model ensures that newly created capacity is redirected toward client value rather than simply generating more activity.

How is Wolters Kluwer helping firms move from reactive service to proactive client value?

 Our focus is on embedding trusted intelligence within the professional workflow, not asking firms to add another disconnected destination. Wolters Kluwer Expert AI brings together domain expertise, authoritative content and intelligent capabilities within the CCH portfolio, with expert-in-the-loop oversight, that keeps professionals accountable for the outcome.

​This approach can help firms organize and interpret incoming information, ground research and analysis in trusted content, and use existing tax data to identify and prioritize advisory opportunities. Within CCH Axcess, the aim is to help work move forward with more context and less manual coordination, while giving professionals clearer information to review and use in client conversations.

The distinction matters. Generic AI may produce a quick response. Professional work requires the right sources, the right client context, and a clear path for review. Clients

should be able to trust that the advice they receive is not only timely, but grounded, explainable and owned by the professional serving them.

How does an AI-enabled client experience change the role of tax and accounting professionals?

It elevates the value of professional judgment, communication, and relationships. As AI supports more routine work, professionals can spend more time understanding client goals, explaining implications and maintaining continuity across compliance, planning and advisory conversations.

That shift also changes how firms develop talent. Early-career professionals spend less time on repetitive preparation and engage earlier with review, research and client needs. Firms will need to create deliberate learning experiences: investigating exceptions, validating AI-assisted work, tracing answers to authoritative sources, observing client conversations and learning how to translate technical conclusions into clear guidance.

Managers will play an important role as coaches of judgment and communication, not only reviewers of completed tasks. Senior professionals can extend their expertise across more engagements when teams have trusted information, repeatable workflows, and clearer signals about where their attention is needed.

What should firm leaders do now?

Start with the client experience you want to improve. Pinpoint the moments where delay, repeated requests, inconsistent communication or limited capacity create friction. Then determine what information, changes and professional oversight are required to make each moment better.

Be explicit about the role AI will play, where professional review occurs, and who owns the guidance delivered to the client. Professionals need to understand the source of an output, validate it, and explain it with confidence.

Finally, measure whether clients and professionals feel the difference. Look beyond tool usage to practical outcomes: faster response, fewer manual handoffs, more consistent service, earlier identification of relevant opportunities and more professional time available for interpretation and advice.

The firms that create lasting value will be those that connect intelligent technology with trusted expertise and a clear client-service purpose. When those elements work together, AI can help firms deliver a more proactive experience while keeping professional judgment and the client relationship at the center.