Materia's platform can answer accounting queries in plain language and embed citations so users can verify the information. It also functions as a document workspace, complete with analysis templates that can be saved and shared with a team, allowing for standardized work, as well as automatically generated insights. The platform can be loaded with the firm's own guidance and policies, client documents and contracts, and engagement files, as well as create templates based on the firm's own checklists. There is also a dedicated search engine for authoritative sources like the SEC, IRS and FASB, which also includes documents and integrations within the library. Finally, the platform features an accounting engine that can handle large-scale accounting workflows, from running templates to multistage planning.
A Thomson Reuters spokesperson said Materia's solutions help accelerate research across multiple content sets, using a combination of public documents, 3rd party integrations, Checkpoint proprietary content, and firm's proprietary documents. Also, they enable customers to conduct large scale document analysis for audit and accounting processes, and finally, they automate workflows in tax, audit and accounting processes, increasingly through AI agents that act independently, making decisions and completing tasks without constant human input, also called agentic AI.
Thomson Reuters believes that these solutions, combined with their own data and content, can provide generative AI solutions to tax and accounting professionals at greater pace and scale than before.
"Our vision is to provide each professional we serve with a Gen AI assistant. Materia will further accelerate this vision for our tax, audit and accounting customers," said David Wong, chief product officer at Thomson Reuters. "Once fully integrated, Materia will transform work and unify the entire customer experience with applications across our tax, audit and accounting portfolio. We are excited by the potential of combining Materia with Thomson Reuters content, know-how and solutions."
Thomson Reuters' overall vision is to provide each professional it serves with a generative AI assistant. Materia's agentic AI assistant, research, and document analysis capabilities were built for tax, audit and accounting use cases. This technology, said the spokesperson, will serve to accelerate the company's AI innovation roadmap across its tax and corporate business segments while creating more value for customers. Once fully integrated into its own solutions, Materia's technology will unify the entire customer experience leveraging capabilities and applications across Thomson Reuters' existing tax, audit, and accounting portfolios.
Thomson Reuters Ventures, an early investor in Materia, led the effort to launch a proof-of-concept initiative that allowed select Checkpoint Edge users to engage with certain Checkpoint content through Materia's AI assistant. The initial results from this work indicated that Thomson Reuters and Materia together could leverage generative AI to deliver value for Thomson Reuters tax, audit and accounting customers.
This is but the latest AI-related move by Thomson Reuters. Most recently, it released a new
These moves are part of a larger pivot from the business solutions company toward AI. Around springtime this year, it
