Paul Peterson, CEO & Managing Partner, Wiss.
If you were designing the accounting profession from scratch today, it wouldn’t look anything like the version most firms are still trying to maintain. The assumptions it was built on—that talent is abundant, career paths are linear and manual work is the price of entry—no longer hold.
The pipeline of CPAs is thinning, career expectations have shifted and AI has crossed the line from efficiency tool to strategic differentiator. Let’s unpack how these forces are reshaping staffing strategies, skill development and leadership priorities—and what it will take to stay competitive as the profession evolves.
The CPA Pipeline Problem
The CPA pipeline has been weakening for years. Fewer accounting majors are sitting for the CPA exam, and the industry is seeing a mass exodus of Baby Boomers without enough young professionals to replace them. According to estimates from the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, around 75% of all licensed CPAs reached retirement age by 2019.
This is more than a numbers problem—it’s also a structural one. The traditional accounting career path—four or five years of school, a 150-hour licensure requirement and long hours in a rigid work environment—simply isn’t aligned with what the next generation of professionals wants. Recent legislative changes, such as Ohio’s decision to offer alternatives to the CPA 150-hour requirement, underscore how urgently states are looking to reverse this trend and make the profession more accessible to emerging talent.
Layer on the burnout that public accounting is infamous for, and the message from younger talent becomes clearer: It’s not that they don’t want to work in accounting—it’s that they don’t want to work in accounting as it exists today.
Firms are feeling the impact. According to Wolters Kluwer’s Future-Ready Accountant report, 45% of firms named the talent shortage as one of the most significant challenges facing the profession. And, according to Thomson Reuters research, 32% of firms cited hiring and developing talent as their top priority in 2024, with recruitment emerging as the most urgent need, particularly at midsize firms.
Rethinking What Makes A Great Hire
The workforce we needed five years ago isn’t the same as the one we’ll need five years from now. Instead of narrowing hiring pipelines to CPA-track accounting majors, leaders should be asking: What other disciplines could thrive in this environment if we gave them the tools and training?
The reality is, firms are already starting to bring in talent with backgrounds in finance, economics, computer science and data analytics—and it’s working. These professionals are helping firms analyze trends, build dashboards, improve forecasting and navigate a business environment that’s moving faster than ever.
Just as important is retraining the professionals already in place. Technical accounting skills are still foundational, but they’re not the finish line. Employees now must know how to work alongside AI, how to critically assess the outputs of machine learning models and how to extract insights that matter to clients. That’s why upskilling has become a central strategy for firms looking to stay competitive. According to the 2024 CAS Benchmark Survey, 63% of firms are now investing in building advisory skills across their existing teams. It’s a clear sign that firms are preparing for a future where success hinges less on debits and credits and more on strategic thinking and client partnership.
AI Isn’t Replacing Accountants, It’s Redefining Them
While the profession is grappling with a shrinking talent pool, AI is making serious strides in automating routine accounting work. Transaction processing, categorization, reconciliations and even the first draft of reporting can now be handled by machine learning systems with startling accuracy.
This shift changes the game for how work gets done and who does it. AI isn’t replacing accountants—it’s replacing the parts of accounting that most people didn’t enjoy doing in the first place. And that opens up two major opportunities:
1. Firms can operate with leaner teams without sacrificing quality or turnaround time.
2. Professionals can focus more on advisory, strategic insights and relationship-building.
This evolution is already reshaping firm service models. Advisory and consulting offerings are expanding rapidly, with adoption rising from 47% to 84% in just one year—a 37% jump. Client demand is growing, and so is the strategic value of accountants who can think beyond the numbers.
By relieving professionals of repetitive, high-volume work, AI gives people more room to think, connect and advise. It enables accountants to spend less time crunching numbers or hunting down anomalies and more time making sense of them. Instead of acting as task executors, they can become true financial translators—bringing clarity to complex decisions and helping clients navigate uncertainty with confidence.
And finally, one of the least discussed, yet arguably most important, impacts of AI and automation is the potential to improve the lived experience of accounting professionals. Automating time-consuming, low-reward tasks can reduce burnout and allow professionals to spend more time doing work that feels meaningful. It can also help firms distribute work more intelligently, predict capacity issues earlier and intervene before talent burns out or walks out.
Where We Go From Here?
Firms don’t need to overhaul everything overnight—but they do need to move. Hiring strategies, training programs and workflow models must evolve in step with the pressures facing the profession. The firms that act now—by broadening talent pipelines, investing in advisory skills and using AI to relieve capacity constraints—can be better positioned to compete in a market that’s demanding more and moving faster.
This is the first of a two-part series exploring how disruption is reshaping accounting. In part two, I’ll tackle how private equity ownership and rising client expectations are shaking up firm business models, and what that means for the future of service and strategy.
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