Artificial intelligence is changing quickly, and most professionals are still working out what it means for the way they do their jobs. At Dunn CPA Firm, the answer has been fairly straightforward: AI is a useful research and knowledge tool, and it belongs in the background.
Where AI Genuinely Helps
The most practical application of AI in a professional setting is research. Finding, synthesizing and organizing information is faster with AI than with traditional search, and for professionals who already understand the subject matter, the value compounds. When you know what questions to ask, you can recognize when a response is off and refine your approach to get to more useful information more quickly.
Tom describes it as a portal to knowledge. For staying current on tax law, reviewing new legislation or refreshing understanding of a complex topic, AI has become a useful part of the workflow. Professionals who are not using it for these purposes are, as he puts it, getting behind the curve.
Where the Line Is
The usefulness of AI as a background tool is a separate question from whether it should play a role in how a firm interacts with its clients. At Dunn CPA Firm, the client relationship stays human.
Most people can relate to the experience of calling a vendor and ending up in an automated system. The instinct is almost always to find a way to reach a real person. That preference is fairly consistent across industries and reflects something most people understand intuitively about what they want from a professional relationship.
The arts offer an interesting parallel. The technology to generate music and visual art algorithmically has been around for some time, and yet the artists and works that resonate with people continue to be human ones. People are not seeking out AI-generated recordings or following algorithmically composed music. The human element in creative work has held its value even as the tools around it have changed, and something similar is likely true in professional services.
How This Shapes the Way the Firm Operates
AI can help a firm work more efficiently, stay better informed and serve clients more effectively. What it cannot replicate is the judgment, the relationship and the ongoing conversation that make an advisory relationship useful over time.
At Dunn CPA Firm, AI supports the work happening behind the scenes. The interaction with clients remains direct and personal, built around genuine understanding of each client’s situation. As more firms move toward automation and reduced client contact, that approach becomes a more meaningful part of what distinguishes one firm from another.
Well, there’s so much happening with AI, the pace of change is just going exponential. So who knows where it will end up. But how we use it here is we use it for research. It’s much faster to research with AI than it is to just Google and try to pull it all together yourself.
So the other thing I would say is access to knowledge, it gives you a portal to knowledge much faster and much more succinct, especially when you are a professional and you know what questions to ask, you know when it’s wrong and you know how to craft the responses to get to the knowledge that you’re trying to refresh your memory on or learn about. So those two things I think in professional world if you’re not using them you’re getting behind the curve for research and knowledge and access to knowledge. From there what we do at our firm is we try to keep the AI support in the background. We don’t want AI. We want to keep it human to human in terms of connection and interaction between us and our clients.
And you know we believe in the human to human content not human agent contact. So and I know I personally I don’t want to live in a world where I am interacting with a bunch of AI bots. That’s an agent. That’s just not I want to interact with people and I don’t mind those things supporting people and helping us all but I don’t want to interact in that world. That doesn’t seem like humanity to me.
So yeah and I have some hope for that. If you think about the music or the arts there has been the technology out there for a long time to go see an electronic computer symphony. You don’t have to go to a real symphony to but nobody else doing electronic computer you know symphony. Nobody I don’t follow any music that is created by AI or computer. Maybe some people do but I don’t know of any stars and any great songs.
Or masterpieces that have ever been created. That way it’s all still human and I think it’s because people want the human to human interaction.
You know that’s kind of what made us superior and made as human is that the relationship stuff.
Some bot support but at the end of the day I’m not betting on a bot to buy Mike interacting with or that’s crazy.
When we’re going to do that.
