Have you seen the latest Copilot AI capabilities in Microsoft Excel? You might want to look at this recent video from Microsoft. In just 90 seconds, a user asks Copilot to clean up and reformat raw data in a spreadsheet, create a formula, create a chart, update the data and then provide insights. There’s no copying, pasting, hunting or clicking. Simple text (or voice) commands. Quick actions.

Is it perfect? Of course not. It’s just a demo. And in real life—which I’ve tried—the technology works most of the time, but not all. But it’s powerful. It’s useful. It’s real, and it’s no better or worse than if an accountant were doing the work. Actually … it’s better. Why? Because it’s doing the same thing that an accountant does, but the user is not being charged $200 an hour to do it.

It’s not just Microsoft that’s rolling out this technology. Most big ERP and accounting platforms are launching agents that can do everything from reconciling bank accounts to preparing expense reports. Accounts payable automation platforms are bringing in suppliers’ invoices for processing, review and payment with minimal human interaction. Inventory items are being ordered, receiving reports are matched to purchase orders, payroll is processed and cash receipts are applied—all by agents, not humans.

And it’s not just the accounting platform providers. I have a client who runs a steel foundry in Georgia that is connecting Claude to their ERP system to analyze the prior costs of steel and iron and is predicting purchasing trends. I have another client in South Dakota who is using ChatGPT, connected to their accounting, CRM, email and Office systems, to forecast cash receipts for the next 90 days using prior sales, seasonal trends, open quotes, unfilled orders and uncollected receivables. Another client in Florida has developed an AI application that’s used by their sales team to record prospect calls and visits and automatically create quotes and proposals.

It’s 2026 and this technology exists.

“Across the enterprise, we’re seeing massive ambition around AI, with organizations starting to pivot from experimentation to integrating AI into the core of the business with a focus on scale and impact,” said Nitin Mittal, a Global AI leader for Deloitte, in the firm’s most recent State of AI Report. “As organizations look to unlock AI’s full value, leaders should enable enterprise value by consciously weaving AI into the fabric of their business workflows and through the better coupling of people and machine intelligence.”

Accounting departments are facing a major disruption because of this. The vendors like to say that jobs aren’t in jeopardy; that AI will make employees more productive and efficient and enable them to do more work in a day. And all of that is true. But c’mon … it seems inevitable that many of these employees are going to find themselves out of work too. That’s coming.

Something similar is coming for the CPA profession.

That’s because a lot of the work we’re doing will also be replaced. Don’t believe me? Here’s another Microsoft video showing how quickly Copilot creates reports on demand. If you go to the site of any major accounting software provider, you’ll see similar capabilities where their software is using AI to create financial statements, analysis and ad-hoc reports based on natural language commands.

And that’s just the main players. As I write this, countless startups are each accepting millions from hungry venture capitalists for their AI-based applications—built from the ground up—that will do everything from using embedded payments to acting as a “modular CFO” to providing back-office agents.

The writing is on the wall: AI is doing the work of accountants. Its agents are deftly performing analytics, preparing financial statements and completing tax returns. This is new, people are still adapting and there are still bugs to work out. Because of these and other factors, the technology is not yet replacing what we do. But it doesn’t take a soothsayer to predict that it’s about to in the next few years. Are you ready for this? Is your firm? Are your clients?

Clients don’t value the drudgery of accounting and would prefer not to pay for it. But the good news is that these same clients, particularly business owners, are always going to want financial advisers. AI can only do so much. And no matter how intelligent it becomes, it will always miss the context of what is going on in the physical world that it can’t detect: a shift in demand, a new product line under development, a potential acquisition, a change in the economy.

Regardless of age, executives will always need help from their trusted advisers. They’re going to assume we’re using AI to prepare analyses and financial reports and even offer some insights. They’re never going to fully trust AI. Instead, they’re going to want us to run interference on what these AI tools are producing, so they can rely on the numbers. And then they’re going to want our advice, which takes into consideration all the things that AI can’t perceive because it’s only limited to the digital world. We’re the ones interacting with all the humans who are impacting the operations of their companies.

Your clients are not going to pay you to do the work that AI can be doing. Which means that we all have to change the way we charge our clients. Billing by the hour isn’t going to cut it anymore. Billing by the deliverable will be the only way to run a profitable accounting practice. Clients will know that we’re using AI to do some of our work, just like we know that an airplane pilot relies on an automatic landing system. But no one cares as long as the product is satisfactorily delivered. For the airplane pilot, that means a safe landing. For the CPA, it means the best advice possible.