Murph’s Takeaway of Thomson Reuters SYNERGY Opening General Session

Today’s SYNERGY 2025 General Session kicked off with a bold look ahead at the future of tax, accounting and audit.

Elizabeth Beastrom, President of Tax & Accounting Professionals, opened the session by recognizing that this was the first year all 50 states were represented. She also welcomed more than 500 ‘newbies’ to the ranks of SYNERGY including myself who has never previously attended one of their conferences. Of the 2,000 plus in attendance, there were also 25 who have  attend the event for the the last 30+ years.

Elizabeth then spoke about the AI-powered transformation going on with the accounting and tax industries.  Expect fresh insights, forward-thinking strategies, and a clear vision for what’s next. These visions include:

• AI is performing tasks that previously required professionals to accomplish.
• Even with fewer qualified professionals coming into the profession, many staffing issues can be resolved by AI Agents, and
• AI will do the work such to make 80 hour weeks a thing of the past.

 With more than 1400 firms using AI-powered CoCounsel, AI is proving that it has the power to track and understand changes, accelerate the workflows required within the modern accounting environment, and is ensuring that users have access to insights to accomplish the best outcomes for their clients. 

Following Elizabeth’s keynote, she was joined by a dynamic panel of industry leaders who explored how technology, talent, and trust are reshaping the profession. The panel included:

Tom Hood, EVP Business Growth & Engagement for AICPA-CIMA and the Business Learning

A few key comments during the panel discussion really resonated with me…

Brittany said, from her firm’s perspective, “2025 is the year AI really came into the work place.” She went on to comment that she wasn’t expecting it to do as much as it is doing. She noted that they adopted Thomson Reuters CoCouncil at Synergy last year, and that since then it had amplified and accelerated their processes and provided insights that would have taken staff members much longer to identify.

Tom’s opening comment was that he felt we were seeing a professional culture in which “everyone wanted everything, everywhere, all at once.” It was clear that the audience felt exactly the same way by their reaction. Tom also agreed with Brittany’s assessment about the capabilities of AI exceeding expectations. He noted that the accuracy and anomaly detection abilities of AI far exceeded human abilities especially within the time frames in which AI is performing tasks.

In looking at the shortage of professionals entering the accounting profession, Tom noted that the type of individual needed had to be AI ready, and would be looking for work environments that maximized use of AI, rather than those maintaining an “old school tech stack.” The key to attracting the right kind of professional was to develop a firm strategy and culture focused on upscaling.

Steve pretty much wrapped up the panel by saying that “the AI which Thomson Reuters is providing in their products is firmly grounded in their content and trained by their experts to behave just as their experts would behave.” He went on to say, “that the accomplishments Thomson Reuters has made in AI this year are just a start, that they would continue to pour resources into making their AI even better for their customers.”

Those in attendance headed out for another round of  workshops, product demonstrations, and panel discussions impacting the tax, accounting and audit industry. As for me, I’m off to see a demonstration of CoCounsel, Ready-to-Advise, Ready-t0-Review, Additive and Audit Intelligence Suite.

After that I was out to the veranda for some of the  “great” food being served at this event. “No ‘rubber chicken’ here, it’s “fried” and it was wonderful.  And so too were the pastries.