Tax professionals have always been problem solvers. Long before artificial intelligence entered the conversation, firms were helping clients make sense of complexity, manage risk, plan ahead and make better decisions. What is different now is the speed and scale of the opportunity.
For years, tax firms have talked about moving beyond compliance and offering more strategic advice. Clients want that shift, too. New research from Thomson Reuters shows that 74% of firms say their clients want them to act as trusted advisors. That speaks to the pressing need for counsel.
AI can help firms meet that demand. It can create capacity, surface insights, streamline workflows and help professionals spend more time on higher-value client conversations. But AI does not replace the need for discipline. In fact, it makes discipline more important.
Discipline in prioritization
It's easy for firms and their clients to get lost in the current landscape. As much as AI has helped firms enjoy smoother tax seasons and create new operational bandwidth for frontline employees, it is not a magic elixir on its own. AI works best when it's laser-focused, targeting a specific need.
Most tax advisory leaders are not AI specialists, and they do not need to be. What they do know is where their firm feels pressure: They know where work slows down, where teams spend too much time on manual review, where junior staff need more support, and where clients are asking questions the firm does not yet have a consistent way to answer.
The firms making the strongest progress with AI are not trying to solve everything at once — they are identifying meaningful pain points and applying technology with purpose.
Advisory should be approached the same way. Tax firms know their clients want more advice, and they know they have more to offer, but they also know that every client has different advisory needs. To build that trust and develop deeper relationships, they need to use both technology and their familiarity with their clients to guide their way.
The risk of moving too fast
Many firms are eager to respond to client demand, and understandably so. Advisory is a major growth opportunity, and AI can make that opportunity feel more immediately attainable. But moving too fast can create problems, and firms should be targeted and strategic in their approach.
Advisory cannot be treated as a simple add-on to compliance work. To scale, it needs a defined place in the firm's workflow. Teams need to know how opportunities are identified, how client needs are assessed, how recommendations are developed, and how advice is delivered.
That is where AI can be especially valuable. It can help firms review information they already have, identify patterns, flag opportunities, and support more consistent delivery.
Building a repeatable advisory model
The relationship between clients and tax professionals is changing. Clients are asking broader questions about planning, operations, growth, succession and strategy. Many firms are well positioned to answer those questions because they already have deep knowledge of the client's business and financial picture.
But trust is built through consistency. The most effective advisors are not just the ones with answers, they are the ones who know which questions to ask, when to ask them, and how to turn the answers into useful guidance. That requires a repeatable model. Firms need to define how they identify client needs, prioritize advisory opportunities, assign the right people, use the right technology and measure whether the work is delivering value. AI can strengthen each part of that model. It can help firms move faster, see more clearly, and deliver more consistently. But the client's need has to remain at the center.
The goal is not to use AI to offer every advisory service to every client. The goal is to solve the right problem first, learn from it and build from there. That is how firms can create advisory services that scale — not by chasing every possibility, but by focusing on the client problems that matter most.
