With 2025 now behind us, all eyes are on 2026 and everything it will bring. While the roughly 150 professionals, vendors and advocates we spoke to varied widely in their expectations for what's to come, certain patterns and motifs did emerge that, taken together, indicate this coming year will likely be one not of wild experimentation and disruption, but of refinement and consolidation in many areas.
This is especially the case when it comes to artificial intelligence. Over the past several years, there have been an astounding number of AI-based products and solutions pitched to accounting professionals at CPA firms, corporate offices and small businesses. Many organizations raced to adopt them as fast as they could, fearful that if they didn't, they would surely be outcompeted by those who did. However, many soon learned that doing so may be more difficult and expensive than they thought, with many
Meanwhile, people also became more aware of the various ways that AI, when improperly applied, can create more problems than it solves. AI-generated false information (colloquially known as "hallucinations") was seen finding its way into
Consequently, many predicted that 2026 will see organizations focus heavily on AI governance and implementation. This technology is no longer the novelty it once was. It is no longer about just having AI, but about how that AI is implemented and the tangible results that follow.
Tammy Coley, chief transformation officer at accounting practice management platform BlackLine, predicted that organizations will be focused more than ever on ensuring there is sufficient governance to support their AI ambitions.
"As we look toward 2026, the question of whether or not to adopt AI is over. The focus has firmly shifted to execution for finance and accounting teams. Digital transformation won't be measured by the speed of automation from the new tools. Instead, it will be about the data integrity of AI deployments and if they're built on strong governance frameworks. We'll start to see a dramatic focus on implementing 'Explainable AI (XAI),' which is necessary to establish embedded, real-time internal controls and ensure full auditability of every AI action, ultimately gaining trust and transparency," she said.
With this will come a higher demand for tangible, concrete results backed by auditable metrics from both their vendors and their own teams. Today it is no longer impressive for a firm to say it uses AI. What will be impressive are those firms who use AI to deliver measurable, explainable, and consistent results.
"2025 was the year of AI experimentation; 2026 will be the year of accountability. While 85% of SaaS finance leaders say they already have AI in their tech stack, 97% admit their teams are still buried in manual order-to-cash work," said Todd McElhatton, chief operating and financial officer at monetization solutions provider Zuora. "This next phase will be about proof, not potential. CFOs will start demanding hard, auditable impact from AI investments: faster closes that show up in working capital, cleaner forecasts that improve guidance accuracy, and measurable savings that hit the bottom line. Anything less (think productivity 'estimates' or vanity metrics) won't make the cut. In 2026, AI must pay for itself, just like any other capital investment."
With this, people predict, will come a decline in standalone AI solutions and a rise in embedded AI that functions almost invisibly — it is not the product itself, but the component that makes the product work.
Davis Bell, CEO of accounting practice management solutions company Canopy, called it "ambient AI."
"AI will shift from being an optional add-on to a native layer inside the core systems accountants already use: bookkeeping, client management, workflow, document handling, billing and reporting," he said. "Instead of opening a separate AI tool, accountants will increasingly experience 'ambient AI': permission-aware AI that quietly handles summaries, document classification, task creation, data consistency checks and client follow-up inside the firm's daily workflows. 2026 will be the year AI meaningfully increases firm capacity, realization rates and partner-level revenue, without increasing partner or admin hours."
Fewer tools, doing more
All of that, in turn, will be part of another consistent prediction for this coming year: the slimming down of tech stacks. We've seen this already as organizations start moving away from best-of-breed point solutions and toward comprehensive suites. It is believed this trend will accelerate in 2026. Tech stacks will go from lots of products that do a few things, to a few products that do lots of things, so say these predictions.
"Accountants have been early tech adopters for decades, but it has resulted in constantly growing tech stacks — clunky, fragmented tools that create more work than they eliminate. Instead of just adding more AI or adapting workflows to fit inadequate tools, firms will demand tools that orchestrate seamlessly, eliminate busywork, and surface insights without manual intervention. The firms that thrive won't be the ones with the most features in their stack. They'll be the ones ruthless enough to cut the tools that don't pass their audit," said Ariege Misherghi, senior vice president and general manager of AP, AR and the accountant channel at payment platform Bill.
These predictions generally point to organizations scaling efficiency versus people, with technology allowing them to do more with less. This plays into other predictions that we will see more people starting their own firms, which likely will have client accounting services and outsourced CFO work as their primary revenue streams, as they tend to center around more rules-based repeatable tasks that are more easily automatable with AI.
"Given the current pace of technology innovation and openness to partnerships, it's an optimal time to start one's own accounting firm; further, with AI as an enabler, more professionals will be empowered to start their own business. I think that will come to fruition across the industry," said Jarrod Randall, a senior partner consultant with small-business accounting platform Xero.
Overall, many are predicting a year where oversight becomes the major priority, details matter more than ever, and hype gives way to results. But, of course, the year is still young and anything can happen, so we have plenty of time to see how it plays out.
While these are some of the major trends, there were a wide range of other predictions for the coming year. We've collected some of the more intriguing ones
