Artificial intelligence is fast becoming a source for new client leads—as more people use the technology to research complex accounting and finance questions, public models like ChatGPT have started referring users to accounting firms germane to their particular issues. While the number and nature of such leads can vary, firms across the country have been seeing leads from AI bots, and likely will see more in the future.
A diverse array of firms have been getting leads from AI bots, ranging from small local boutique firms to large firms with multinational footprints. But one thing they all have in common is a robust internet presence built by active and ongoing digital marketing efforts. This is because public AI models generally tend to get their information from scraping the internet, so the more online a firm is, the more likely it is a bot has absorbed its content.
For example, Katherine Bunschoten, head of North Carolina-based Certum Solutions, noted her firm has significant presence on YouTube and social media platforms as well as a great deal of resources and thought leadership content on its site. This has led to a regular stream of referrals from AI bots.
"They found us through our content," she said. "What I think is happening is people are looking for how to do things or how to learn things through these answer engines, through artificial intelligence like ChatGPT, and we actually have content out there. We love developing our own content, so they were running into some of our content, but it was brought into the answer engine."
Patrick Camuso, head of digital asset specialist firm Camuso CPA, agreed that a strong online presence is vital if one wants to get noticed by AI. While he is getting a large number of AI leads, he doesn't think this is because he discovered one weird trick to getting the bots to recognize him. He believes instead that the leads are the combined result of not only content he puts out himself but the videos and podcasts he has appeared on, as well as what is published about him in places like Accounting Today.
"It's basically like every piece of marketing you're putting online can, to a certain degree, impact AI. All of them are going to pull from different sources to different degrees and weigh their importance differently, but overall there's not necessarily one thing you can do. … The real results come from having all these fundamental things in place," he said.
Similarly, Katherine O'Toole, chief marketing officer for Top 25 firm PKF O'Connor Davies, noted that her own firm was aware that AI would likely become a factor in the firm's marketing and so accounted for it in its search engine optimization strategy.
"After ChatGPT first launched, we approached it like our SEO strategy where we identified keyword groups, built out a strategy based around brand awareness and conversions to develop content specific for the users' needs, while monitoring AI referrals to our website and staying abreast of industry trends and insights," she said.
Meanwhile, Tanina Khanuja, Top 25 firm Withum's digital marketing director, said the firm's already active SEO efforts began to naturally bleed into AI optimization as time went on, as it raised the same kinds of questions about how content was structured.
"We did make that active change early on. We also paid very close attention to the structure of our content: Is it simple for bots to read, is it structured the right way, does it have [marketing software] Schema in the back end telling Google what type of insight it is?" she said.
Becky Livingston, founder and CEO of accounting-focused marketing consultancy Penheel Marketing, felt this made sense, as what she has observed is that the likelihood of a firm getting AI referrals was not a function of size but the diligence and consistency of its digital marketing, especially SEO. A lot of AI optimization isn't that much different from traditional SEO techniques, she added.
"It's not that much different, technically. The [challenge] is focusing on answering your target market's questions because people are usually asking questions to get the search result snippets. But otherwise you're doing the same thing: You're using your SEO keywords, you're putting it in your headlines and subhead and alt tags. It's still the same. The difference is you're answering the question as your headline versus embedded inside the article. And you're usually bullet-pointing steps instead of paragraphs as you organize the content," she said.
She added that currency is another factor; whether one is optimizing for search engines or AI, firms should not take a "set it and forget it" approach for their marketing because what people are looking for and what questions they're asking can change with the season. Further, regularly updated content will be seen as more relevant and so be weighed higher for both AI and search engines.
While firms had not been optimizing specifically for AI before, they are now, and in doing so are finding the same sorts of similarities to traditional SEO and digital marketing techniques Livingston talked about. However, as they refine their techniques over time, they are learning that similar does not mean identical.
Suzanne Reed, chief marketing officer for Top 50 firm LBMC, noted that it has started emphasizing blog posts that provide clear, direct answers to client questions versus high-level educational pieces. The firm is also tightening up content around key specialties it wants to be associated with, as well as investing in more AI-friendly solutions for its back-end marketing infrastructure. This is similar to what has always been done, but with some key differences.
"The biggest difference is mindset. Traditional SEO is often about keywords and rankings. With AI, it's about clarity and credibility. If your content clearly answers real questions in a trustworthy way, you're more likely to get surfaced. We're not abandoning traditional digital marketing, but we are adapting. AI is changing how people find professional services, and we want to be proactive about meeting them where they are," she said.
Khanuja said Withum was also planning content changes on its website: All page hits will have a "Why Choose Us" section to explain why her firm is particularly suited to addressing a specific issue, and all websites will have a summary at the top plus a set of key takeaways.
"We certainly cannot do that for everything, but a lot of our evergreen content we are now approaching [this way], making sure we have an intro, making sure we have all our headings in the right order for bots to read," she said.
Sasha Tchulkova, Withum's marketing director, added that the content itself is also being rethought. Superficially, this means making sure pages have the proper tags and headers. But more deeply, it also means a mindset shift in how the firm presents its content in the first place. She has found that bots tend to prefer simple, direct, clear content that is arranged in an orderly manner, which might be a little different from how people have traditionally approached their online thought leadership.
"It goes beyond marketing, into our teams delivering this stuff. … Customizing for AI does make them think a little differently than the tradition of putting all [their] thoughts into the article," she said. Noting that they still want people to be reading these pieces, the new approach emphasizes content that is easy to understand for both humans and AIs. "It's a real restructure on thought leadership and content as a whole."
People also reported investing in more back-end solutions to increase AI visibility, such as O'Toole from PKFOD.
"In 2025, we've been more proactive with purchasing plans on trusted platforms (like SEMrush) to gain deeper insights like favorability ratings, competitive benchmarking and prompt insights. With these insights, we've reassessed and updated content to get our website to show up more in relevant chats/outputs," she said.
While the art and science of AI optimization is a still-evolving field, firms have found even these rudimentary techniques have been yielding potent results.
"We had no playbook for 'getting recommended by ChatGPT,' but we knew traffic and leads were being impacted by the new AI models, i.e., ChatGPT, Google Genius, Perplexity, etc. ," said Reed. "We did not realize it was actually happening, though, until a few prospects mentioned it. That is when we shifted our content strategy and focused on publishing niche content, answering detailed questions, and keeping our site updated. It's paying off in new ways we didn't fully anticipate."
However, Livingston from Penheel Marketing warned that optimizing for AI may also lead to backlash from humans. Firms need to remember to balance the interests of both in their marketing efforts, because while some humans may embrace AI referrals, others may be repelled by them.
"I teach adult continuing education and I also teach traditional students, and both groups tell me of their distrust," she said. "When they see AI search results, they often don't believe them because they think they're fabricated or faked or hallucinated, so they distrust it. That might be a drawback. Until we begin to believe the AI results are real, people won't trust it as much as they would the search results sitting beneath the AI snipper."
