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The frustration wasn't solely about AI. Nor was it solely about Mel Robbins, Reese Witherspoon or Emma Grede. It was about exhaustion. Women have spent decades hearing some version of the same promise: get educated, work hard, become indispensable, build your network, seek mentors, ask for stretch assignments, raise your hand for leadership, find balance, negotiate better, be resilient. The specifics change with the times, but the underlying message does not: If you aren't advancing, you simply aren't trying hard enough.
Public accounting has its own version of this story.
For years, firms have invested in flexibility initiatives, women's programs, leadership training, hybrid policies, mentorship, sponsorship and wellness efforts. Some have done so sincerely and with good intentions. Others have reluctantly done so to compete. Yet after more than 15 years of Accounting MOVE Project research, one uncomfortable question continues to surface: If all these efforts are working as intended, why do firms still struggle to retain and advance experienced women at the levels they say they want?
That question matters even more now because the pressure women are carrying has continued to build. Many mid-career professionals, often at the exact point where they hope to step into stronger leadership roles, are managing compounding responsibilities at home, whether that means raising children, navigating a parent's declining health, or honoring cultural expectations that make stepping back from family care simply unthinkable.
None of that reduces ambition. It reduces available capacity, and firms often mistake the two. And now those same professionals are being asked to absorb yet another major shift, as AI and rapidly evolving technologies reshape what accounting work looks like and what firms expect.
Some of the advice around AI is reasonable, and ignoring it entirely is shortsighted. The technology is already reshaping work, including accounting, and for many professionals, it has the potential to remove low-value tasks and create more capacity for advisory work, leadership and higher-level contributions.
Used intentionally, AI could create more space for strategic thinking, relationship-building and leadership activities that accelerate advancement. Used poorly, it risks becoming one more expectation layered onto people already carrying too much.
Many women in accounting are already leading AI adoption, building advisory practices, modernizing workflows and using new tools to create capacity. The issue is not the willingness to evolve. The question is whether firms are evolving expectations, advancement models and support systems at the same pace.
Women who spent years being told to lean in, build networks, seek visibility and prove their value are increasingly hearing a new message: adapt again. For some, the push to embrace AI feels eerily familiar, less like learning a new tool and more like being passed over for a promotion, then being asked to train the person who got the role because you know the work so well. Most women are not resistant to change. They are tired of being expected to absorb one more thing while expectations around workload, advancement and support remain largely unchanged.
The New York Times piece referenced research showing women are disproportionately represented in occupations more vulnerable to AI disruption and argued that women are being encouraged to enthusiastically adopt technologies that may ultimately reduce the number of stable career paths available to them. Whether concerns center on AI, economic shifts or changing expectations around work, uncertainty influences behavior. People who feel unsure about the sustainability of advancement often make different decisions about leadership, visibility and long-term commitment.
Accounting firms should not dismiss that concern. If professionals begin questioning whether advancement is worth the personal cost, while also trying to navigate rapidly changing expectations around technology, availability and performance, firms may face a more complicated talent challenge than pipeline shortages alone: retaining people who no longer see leadership as sustainable.
We often talk about retention as though people leave because they will get flexibility or higher compensation elsewhere. Sometimes they do, but there is another possibility firms need to consider: people step back when the tradeoffs stop feeling worth it.
When the cost of advancement starts to include constant visibility, bringing in new business, caregiving responsibilities at home, technical excellence and relentless adaptation at work, some highly capable professionals decide not that they cannot keep going, but that it is no longer worth it.
Firms often interpret that recalculation as disengagement, reduced commitment or a lack of ambition when it may reflect something much simpler: highly capable women making rational decisions about sustainability.
Choosing sanity and sustainability over advancement at any cost is not the same as lacking ambition. It may be a sign that the cost of advancement has become unreasonable. Firms cannot claim to value flexibility, caregiving and well-being while continuing to reward those with the greatest availability, fewest outside demands and clearest paths to advancement.
Are experienced women advancing? Are caregivers staying? Are future leaders emerging? Firms also need to understand whether new technologies are expanding capacity and opportunity or simply increasing expectations around productivity and availability.
Those answers require more than assumptions, anecdotes or good intentions. They require data and a willingness to look honestly at what is working, what is not and where blind spots exist.
That is part of why the 2026 Accounting MOVE Project research focuses on caregiving and the growing pressure on professionals caught between leadership expectations, family responsibilities and a rapidly changing workplace. We are asking firms to help us better understand not only what policies exist but also whether they are shaping retention, advancement and leadership outcomes.
If your firm believes it is supporting people well, participate. If you suspect there are gaps, participate. And if you want to understand how your experience compares to firms across the profession, participate.
The firms best positioned for the future may not be those with the most policies or the fastest adoption of new technologies. They may be the firms willing to ask harder questions about capacity, caregiving, advancement and what leadership requires today. They may also be the firms willing to consider whether highly capable people are stepping back because they lack ambition, or because the cost of advancement has quietly become unreasonable.
The future leadership pipelines are shaped less by what firms say they value and more by the conditions under which people decide advancement is still worth pursuing.
