Ten years ago, you couldn't have known that a pandemic would radically reshape accounting firms' attitudes toward remote work. Nor could you have known that CAS would be the fastest growing practice offering, or that ESG reporting and auditing was shaping up to be the next one. And who would have guessed that private equity firms would suddenly find public accounting an attractive market to play in?
A lot can happen in a decade, so it can seem pointless to try to predict what will come, but the advent of ChatGPT and its ability to produce high-quality articles on timely topics has me feeling pointless, so I thought I'd take a stab at guessing some of the major ways the accounting profession will have changed by 2033:
- The staff shortage will only get worse. Between the retirement of the boomers, the long-term impact of COVID, and a number of other factors, the broad workforce is set to shrink over the next decade, and it will be even worse for accountants. Firms need to find ways to decrease their reliance on personnel.
- You will work with fewer accountants. They're not making enough of them to fill all the roles available at your firm. Lots of work that is currently done by accountants will be shifted to nonaccountants, artificial intelligence, and people overseas.
- All practices will be CAS practices. As technology automates more and more compliance work, the client accounting/advisory services model will become the standard, with accountants deploying and managing the technology that maintains compliance, while primarily providing advice and counsel based on the results. This will be true in just about every area with the likely exception of audit.
- ESG will be everywhere. The reporting mandates that are just in their infancy now will grow massively, and accountants will look back and say, "Remember when all we worried about was financial reporting?" Carbon footprint measurements and diversity goals will move markets as much as earnings per share.
- The partnership model will be just one of many. There will still be firms — mostly larger ones — that stick with the current model, but more and more will try PE-driven models, or ad hoc networks that come together for individual engagements and dissolve immediately after, or franchising, or some other method of organizing work that we haven't dreamed of yet. The main point is that no single model will prevail.
And one last prediction: The article that ChatGPT (or its descendants) write on this subject in 10 years will likely mention none of these.
How do you think the profession will change by 2033? Send your predictions to me at
