The AI Exposure Index: Accounting

What does this Index measure?

Every competitor in this census is selling today. Some sell software, and some sell the finished work the way an accounting firm does. What decides a service line’s exposure is whether the client can get that work without the firm. Where the client can, we mark the line replaced. Where the client still needs someone to run the AI and check its output, the firm keeps the work at fewer hours, so we mark the line repriced. Where nothing on the market does that work at all, we mark the line defensible. Open a line below to see the companies attacking the work it bills for.

Where did the companies come from?

We ran one research sweep per service line, then checked every entry again: we opened the cited source and confirmed it named the company and backed the figure. We dropped anything resting on an aggregator profile, an undated release, or a figure that appeared nowhere in its own source, and we estimated nothing. That took out six entries. What is left is 120 distinct companies across 170 placements, and since one company often sells into several lines, we credit a product to the company that sells it.

How was each company placed?

We place a company on a service line when it targets the work that line bills for, not a task beside it. The verdict sits on the line, never on a company. No company here carries a buyer tag: a vendor’s marketing names who it courts, not who can buy. Where a line’s verdict and its company list look like they disagree, that gap is the finding, and a note on the line explains it.

What counts as a service line?

A service line earns a place when a firm bills for it as its own engagement. We split lines wherever the buyer, the billing model, or the licensure requirement differs, because each of those changes whether a client can get the deliverable alone. The field is 17 service lines carrying all 120 companies.

What does this Index not cover?

We exclude practice management, billing, and client-portal software. That software helps run the firm; it doesn’t take a service line. Payroll stays in because firms still bill it, though most of that work went to platform providers before AI arrived, so read its verdict as a standing loss rather than a new one. Wealth management sits outside this Index. It is a licensed business a firm runs alongside its accounting practice, and this Index covers accounting work. Treat the counts as a floor, since a sweep only finds the companies that publish.

How should I read it?

A competitor named here isn’t lost revenue. We read shipped product and live service as of September 2026, so the Index shows who is coming for the work, not billing that has already moved. 5 of the 17 verdicts land below high confidence, and each of those notes says why.

Sources

• Anders, How AI is reshaping professional service fees (INTHEBLACK, CPA Australia, July 2026)

  Dr Angela Hecimovic of the University of Sydney Business School on clients demanding savings once they can see less labour was used.

• Goldman Sachs leads $75 million round for Fieldguide (Fortune, February 2026)

  The largest audit-AI round of the period, and it sells to firms rather than to the companies being audited.

• SEC Chief Accountant Hohl on auditor independence rules (Thomson Reuters, 2026)

  Why the audit lines hold today, and the review that could change that.

Every company named in the Index links to its own site, so each entry can be checked at the source.

Download the dataset

Reviewed September 30, 2026. Licensed CC BY-ND 4.0. Share and cite it with attribution and a link back, but don’t republish a modified or rebranded copy.

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Corrections and additions

This is a living census, not a closed report. If a company is missing, sits under the wrong service line, carries a verdict you can argue with, or has a better primary source, send it with a link. Useful for anyone who sees a gap in a service line they know, and for vendors who want the record accurate.

shawn@upshiftco.com