What the AICPA's Rise2040 Report Means for Accounting Firm Leaders

 The AICPA doesn't typically produce documents designed to make firm leaders uncomfortable. Rise2040 is a partial exception. 

Key Points

• The AICPA and CIMA's Rise2040 initiative, built on input from 6,000 professionals across 25 countries, identifies a clear shift already underway: the profession is moving from historical reporting to anticipatory advisory work.
• According to Rise2040, the greatest near-term threat to accounting firms is not AI — it's institutional inertia and resistance to change.
• Only 16% of finance teams have implemented AI in day-to-day workflows despite 63% actively exploring it, according to a 2026 Accounting Seed survey — a gap that represents both competitive risk and competitive opportunity.
• Trust is rising in strategic value. Rise2040 identifies human judgment, ethics, and accountability as increasingly critical differentiators precisely because AI automates so much of the work around them.
• Firm leaders who treat Rise2040 as background news will find its predictions arriving faster than expected.

Released June 8, 2026, the Rise2040: Shaping the Future of Finance and Accounting report is the result of a structured global dialogue across more than 25 countries and 6,000 accounting and finance professionals — CPAs, CGMAs, CFOs, controllers, educators, and emerging practitioners. It isn't a vendor whitepaper projecting AI utopia, and it isn't a hand-wringing piece about displacement. Rise2040 is a profession-led foresight initiative designed not simply to anticipate the profession's future but to actively shape it. AICPA & CIMA

For accounting firm leaders specifically, the report contains three findings worth reading carefully — not because they're surprising, but because of what they imply for decisions that need to happen now.

The Profession Is Shifting From Historian to Strategist — Faster Than Most Firms Are Moving

As automation reshapes routine work, the profession is rapidly shifting from a historical reporter to an "anticipatory advisor." This is the central thesis of Rise2040, and it's not speculative. The shift is already happening in firms that have moved aggressively on AI adoption — the question is whether your firm is leading that shift or absorbing it. The Manila Times

What does "anticipatory advisor" mean in practice? According to the report, the profession is increasingly shifting from a focus on historical reporting to providing strategic insight, foresight, and decision-making support. Scenario planning. Forward-looking analysis. Helping clients understand not just what happened last quarter but what's likely to happen next year and why. 

The technical work that currently consumes most of your team's capacity — reconciliations, data entry, compliance prep — is exactly what AI automates first and best. Participants in the Rise2040 process indicated that technology is viewed as extending, rather than erasing, the role of finance and accounting professionals, allowing greater focus on areas such as advisory work, scenario planning, strategy, and decision support. 

The implication for firm leaders: the value proposition you've been selling — "we do your accounting accurately and on time" — is becoming table stakes. The differentiator is increasingly what your people do with the time AI gives back.

The Biggest Risk Isn't AI — It's Waiting to See How It Plays Out

A key takeaway from Rise2040 is that disruption alone isn't the greatest threat — resistance to change is. Across global discussions, participants emphasized institutional inertia as a more immediate risk than AI itself. 

That's a notable finding. Six thousand professionals, across 25 countries, are looking directly at AI transformation and identifying their own organizations' reluctance to change as the more dangerous variable.

The data supports the concern. While 63% of finance teams are exploring AI tools, only 16% have implemented AI in day-to-day accounting workflows — a gap that reflects not skepticism about AI's potential but whether teams are operationally ready to use it. Separately, 79% of tax, accounting, and audit professionals expect AI to have a high, or even transformational, impact on the future of their industry, but only 14% say their firms have a defined AI strategy. 

Read those two numbers together. Almost eight in ten professionals expect transformational impact. One in seven firms has a plan.

The business impact gap between firms that leverage AI and those that do not remains modest today, partly because we are still early in true, firmwide AI adoption. Most tangible gains so far have materialized in internal operations rather than in client-facing differentiation — largely because client behavior in accounting is sticky. That stickiness is real. But it is not permanent, and it is not evenly distributed across client segments. Sophisticated clients — the ones making growth decisions who need advisory depth, not just accurate books — are already asking which firms are actually ahead on this. 

Firms that embrace this transformation with discipline, governance, and strategic clarity will emerge as leaders. Those who delay risk falling behind in an increasingly complex, regulated, and technology-driven environment. Global

Trust Is Rising in Value, Not Falling

One of the more counterintuitive findings in Rise2040 is the trust argument. When AI enters a conversation about the future of professional services, the instinctive concern is that automation erodes trust — that replacing human labor with machine output makes the relationship feel less accountable, less personal, less reliable.

The Rise2040 research points in the opposite direction. The report argues that this transition increases the value of human judgment even as AI becomes more embedded in day-to-day processes. Ethics, accountability, and trust remain essential in a business environment where leaders have access to larger volumes of data and more automated tools. 

The reasoning holds up. When AI handles the mechanical work, what clients are buying from their accounting firm shifts. They're not paying for someone to run the numbers — the numbers run themselves. They're paying for judgment about what the numbers mean, confidence that someone is accountable when something goes wrong, and a relationship with a professional who understands their business well enough to see what the data doesn't show.

That's not a diminished role. It's a more valuable one — if firm leaders invest in building the capabilities to fill it.

AICPA and CIMA CEO Mark Koziel put it directly: "As AI reshapes how work gets done, our value will increasingly be defined by human judgment, trust, and the ability to lead in complexity." 

What Rise2040 Means for Your Firm Right Now

Rise2040 is designed as an ongoing platform, not a one-time report. Built on structured foresight methodologies and AI-enabled analysis, it is a continuous system for capturing insights and translating them into action across the global profession — and will continue to evolve through expanded engagement, deeper analysis, and practical tools. 

For firm leaders, the near-term questions it raises are operational, not philosophical:

Where in your current workflow is your team spending the most time on work AI could handle — and what is that capacity worth if redirected toward advisory? What would it take to go from exploring AI tools to actually deploying them in day-to-day processes? And what does your firm's value proposition look like to a client who can see, clearly, which firms are moving and which are watching?

Rise2040 doesn't predict a single outcome for the profession. What it does argue — based on input from 6,000 professionals — is that the outcome will be shaped by choices made now. Waiting for more clarity isn't a neutral position. It's a choice with a cost.

Frequently Asked Questions About Rise2040 and the Future of Accounting

Here's some more info.

What is the AICPA's Rise2040 initiative?

Rise2040: Shaping the Future of Finance and Accounting is a global, profession-led foresight initiative launched by the AICPA and CIMA on June 8, 2026. It draws on input from more than 6,000 accounting and finance professionals across 25 countries and is designed as an ongoing platform — not a one-time report — to capture insights and translate them into practical guidance for firms and professionals.

What does Rise2040 say about AI replacing accountants?

The report is explicit that technology is amplifying the profession, not replacing it. Participants consistently identified AI as freeing professionals to focus on higher-value activities — advisory work, scenario planning, strategy, and decision-making support — rather than eliminating professional roles. The shift is from historical reporting to forward-looking guidance.

What does Rise2040 identify as the biggest threat to accounting firms?

Institutional inertia. Across global discussions, participants identified resistance to change as a more immediate risk than AI disruption itself. The concern is that firms waiting to see how AI plays out will find the competitive gap has widened significantly by the time they act.

How should accounting firm leaders respond to Rise2040's findings?

The report calls for a move from reactive adaptation to proactive, anticipatory leadership. For firm leaders, that means auditing where staff capacity is being consumed by work AI can automate, developing a defined AI strategy (currently missing from 86% of firms), and beginning to shift the firm's value proposition from compliance accuracy toward strategic advisory depth.

At Winsome Marketing, we help accounting firms communicate what makes them different — including how they're approaching the shift Rise2040 describes. If you're building toward a stronger advisory positioning, let's talk.