The tax and accounting profession is at a crossroads. Relentless deadlines, persistent talent shortages, escalating client expectations, and a continuously shifting and complex regulatory landscape are prompting professionals to search for sustainable ways to stay competitive. The traditional approaches that built successful practices are increasingly insufficient for meeting a pace of change that shows no signs of slowing
Enter agentic AI, a technology that has already moved from “nice to have” to “must have” in the relatively brief time it’s been around. Yet, despite rapid adoption, many seasoned tax professionals find themselves caught in a familiar tension: They’ve built their reputations on precision, trust, and hard-earned expertise, making them naturally cautious about agentic AI tools. The concerns are valid and predictable, often including the lack of time to learn something new, trust about accuracy, and fears of replacement. But the greatest risk isn’t adoption of agentic AI systems—it’s watching competitors who embrace the technology speed past the firms that are still frozen in debate. The reality is that agentic AI is already transforming the way accounting and tax professionals work every day.
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Why is agentic AI a good fit for tax and accounting?
Agentic AI use cases for tax and accounting firms
What tax professionals should look for in agentic AI tools
How you can optimize tax workflows today
Why is agentic AI a good fit for tax and accounting?
For tax professionals to understand agentic AI, it’s helpful to compare it to technologies you’re likely already using. Traditional automation handles repetitive tasks through fixed rules. Generative AI and large language models (LLMs) respond to prompts by creating content or answering questions. But agentic AI goes further because it can proactively manage entire workflows without waiting for human direction.
Unlike generative AI that requires constant prompting, agentic AI can independently handle complex tasks like document review, memo drafting, and research synthesis. It doesn’t just generate outputs; it orchestrates multi-step processes, making decisions about what to do next based on context and objectives. The best professional-grade agentic AI tools for tax and accounting are purpose-built for the industry. They integrate seamlessly with familiar platforms like Excel and Checkpoint, while drawing from trusted sources including IRS code and firm policies. This isn’t generic AI adapted for accounting—it’s AI designed specifically for how tax and accounting professionals actually work.
With the rise of agentic AI, it’s important to note that professional-grade agentic AI does not replace people, in part because professional judgment and human oversight remain essential. It simply enhances what they are capable of. Think of it as a junior associate that never sleeps, never forgets, and always cites its sources so that firms can scale their capabilities without burning out staff or compromising quality.
For a deeper dive into how agentic AI is reshaping the way professionals work, download the free e-book Agentic AI 101: What your business needs to know
Agentic AI use cases for tax and accounting firms
Imagine a tax and accounting professional who refuses to use advancements in technology that make their job easier (like foregoing the use of a calculator). That’s the position many firms find themselves in today with agentic AI, and that may be because they aren’t aware of the vast number of AI use cases to which the technology can be applied. Some include:
Automating the tedious and elevating the strategic
Improving speed and accuracy in research
Training new staff without burning out senior teams
Simplifying client collaboration
Automating the tedious and elevating the strategic
Prepping K-1s, drafting client-ready tax memos, formatting engagement letters are all jobs that agentic AI can manage across the task cycle. Instead of toggling between returns and source documents, professional-grade agentic AI pulls relevant figures, applies firm-approved formatting, and drafts the first version. This leaves more time for tax planning, client consultations, and identifying new advisory opportunities.
Tax return preparation & K-1 review
“Review this client’s K-1 and extract all relevant figures for Schedule E.”
“Summarize key changes in this year’s K-1 compared to last year’s.”
“Draft a client-facing explanation of this K-1’s impact on their return.”
Client-ready tax memos
“Draft a tax memo explaining the implications of Section 199A for this client.”
“Summarize IRS guidance on passive activity losses and cite relevant Checkpoint sources.”
“Generate a first draft of a memo on state nexus exposure for remote employees.”
Engagement letter formatting
“Format this engagement letter using our firm’s standard template.”
“Insert the correct scope of services and billing terms for a corporate tax engagement.”
“Update this letter to reflect a change in filing deadlines and deliverables.”
Strategic advisory & planning
“Analyze this client’s return and suggest three tax planning opportunities.”
“Identify potential R&D credit eligibility based on these expense categories.”
“Draft a summary of tax-saving strategies for a high-net-worth individual with real estate holdings.”
Workflow acceleration
“Summarize this 400-page client file and flag any missing documents.”
“Compare this draft return to last year’s and highlight anomalies.”
“Generate a checklist of follow-up items based on this client’s tax prep file.”
Improving speed and accuracy in research
While generative AI can do things like summarize IRS Internal Revenue Ccode, agentic AI is able to actively handle the full research workflow. Agentic AI can search across vast datasets in real time and engage in decision-making, which enables it to carry out several valuable and complex tasks. If a new federal tax regulation comes out, your AI agent can monitor relevant updates, identify how the change affects high-net-worth clients in specific states, pull related IRS rulings, and generate a memo with plain-English explanations and citations. This helps your firm generate proactive insights, comply faster, and provide confident recommendations on a larger scale.
Impact analysis for high-net-worth clients
“Analyze how the new IRS ruling on passive activity losses affects high-net-worth individuals with multiple S-corp investments.”
“Identify which of our clients in Texas and Florida are impacted by the latest SALT cap guidance.”
Memo generation with citations
“Draft a plain-English memo explaining the new federal tax regulation on digital asset reporting, including citations from the Internal Revenue Code and Checkpoint.”
“Generate a client-ready summary of the IRS’s latest guidance on bonus depreciation phase-out, with examples and planning tips.”
Cross-referencing and source pulling
“Pull all relevant IRS rulings and Treasury Regulations related to the new 2025 corporate AMT rules.”
“Compare the new federal guidance on R&D credits with prior-year IRS notices and highlight key differences.”
Proactive advisory enablement
“Based on this client’s 2024 return, identify how the new regulation on foreign tax credits might affect their 2025 planning.”
“Suggest three advisory opportunities triggered by the recent IRS update on trust income distribution rules.”
Training new staff without burning out senior teams
Agentic AI acts like a self-guided mentor for junior staff, automating the onboarding work. Instead of relying on busy seniors to explain depreciation schedules or passive activity rules, your agent can proactively offer cited explanations, recommend the right tax treatment based on a client file, and walk the associate through firm-specific templates. It can even flag errors in a draft return before review. This helps firms ramp up new hires faster, deliver work sooner, and leave more time for senior staff to do higher-level work.
Explaining tax concepts with citations
“Explain how depreciation schedules work for real estate assets, with citations from IRS Pub 946 and Checkpoint.”
“What are the passive activity loss rules under Section 469? Provide a plain-English summary with examples.”
Client-specific tax treatment guidance
“Based on this client’s 2024 return, what’s the correct treatment for bonus depreciation on a new vehicle purchase?”
“Review this draft return and flag any inconsistencies with our firm’s treatment of passive income.”
Template navigation and formatting
“Walk me through how to complete our firm’s engagement letter template for a new S-corp client.”
“Insert the correct language for a 1040 engagement letter using our firm’s standard format.”
Error detection and review prep
“Check this draft return for common errors in Schedule E and flag anything that looks off.”
“Compare this year’s return to last year’s and highlight any anomalies in capital gains reporting.”
Proactive learning and task guidance
“What should I review before preparing a return for a client with multiple K-1s?”
“List the steps to complete a state nexus analysis for a remote employee in three states.”
Simplifying client collaboration
Agentic AI can summarize uploads, flag missing documents, and prep files for review, providing optimization that streamlines every interaction. Tax and accounting professionals can use agents to manage client document intake, upload a PDF of brokerage statements and scanned W-2s, extracts essential data, classify income types, flag inconsistencies, request missing forms, and prepare the file for review—all without manual intervention. Because professional-grade agentic AI tools adapt to each client’s filing history to catch what’s likely missing, firms can see less back-and-forth, cleaner files, and support a better client experience.
Document summarization & classification
“Summarize this PDF of brokerage statements and classify income types by category.”
“Extract all W-2 income and employer details from these scanned documents.”
“List all 1099s in this upload and identify any missing payers based on last year’s return.”
Error detection & consistency checks
“Flag inconsistencies between this year’s W-2 and last year’s return.”
“Check this client’s uploaded documents for missing forms based on their filing history.”
“Compare this draft return to the uploaded source documents and highlight discrepancies.”
Proactive client file preparation
“Prepare this client’s file for review by summarizing key income, deductions, and flagged issues.”
“Generate a checklist of missing or incomplete documents based on this upload.”
“Draft a client follow-up email requesting the missing Schedule K-1 and updated 1099-INT.”
Workflow optimization
“Create summary of all extracted data points for reviewer sign-off.”
Not everything that claims to be “AI-powered” or “AI-driven” is agentic AI, or even the right fit for your firm. Generic AI tools may lack domain expertise, transparency, or sufficient privacy, which will likely create more problems than they solve.
Firms should look for several essential characteristics of good agentic AI system, such as secure cloud-native architecture. It should pull from trusted industry-specific sources. Find out if the agentic AI solution has been confirmed by a legitimate third party as having met industry benchmarks around things like speed, reliability, and accuracy. Agentic AI should also work with your everyday tools, such as Excel and Checkpoint, not around them. The best solutions integrate seamlessly into existing workflows while maintaining the transparency and reliability that tax professionals demand.
Learn how to evaluate trustworthy AI in our Agentic AI 101 e-book.
How you can optimize tax workflows today
Your competitors are already using agentic AI to grow capacity, reduce risk, and improve client service. Just ask Plante Moran, an accounting, tax, consulting, and wealth management firm headquartered in Michigan that is setting the standard for what modern tax and accounting services look like. After adopting CoCounsel, the professional-grade AI assistant from Thomson Reuters, 96% of staff agreed it was a useful tool. The firm has since scaled its user base by 450% to future-proof audit practices and enhance productivity.
As firms of all sizes use agentic AI-powered solutions such as CoCounsel to yield measurable gains in efficiency, accuracy, and staff satisfaction, their competitors struggle with the same old bottlenecks.
The good news is that folding this productivity-boosting technology into your daily responsibilities doesn’t mean overhauling how you work entirely or embarking on a steep learning curve—it just requires taking the first step. To do that, download Agentic AI 101: What your business needs to know to learn how to get started.
