The instinct most firms follow is to take artificial intelligence and force it into the workflow they already run, automating a step here, shaving a task there. That produces a slightly cheaper version of a service the entire profession is racing to commoditize. It is a treadmill, not a moat.
The more valuable move is to let the tools change what the firm sells. The center of gravity shifts from producing returns in a spring sprint to maintaining a continuous financial relationship, with the return falling out the back as a byproduct.
Two cautions hold throughout. The plumbing is worth reinventing; the discipline that catches errors before they reach a client is not. And the two things that stay human, a CPA's judgment and a CPA's signature, are not obstacles to automate around. They are the point. Everything below concentrates scarce human attention on exactly those and lets the machines carry the rest.
None of this asks for a decision today. It is a picture of the firm these tools make possible, ordered by where the leverage is largest. The conversation about what to build first comes next.