AI isn’t the advantage. What you enable with it is.
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Editor’s note: This piece is part of a series on Kaufman Rossin’s approach to AI. Read Chief Executive Officer Marc Feigelson’s perspective on putting people first: Kaufman Rossin’s Approach to AI.
AI isn’t just a tool we adopted. It’s the catalyst for what we’re becoming — and what we can now help our clients become.
Not reactive. Deliberate.
Kaufman Rossin has been building and executing our AI strategy for several years. What that work has produced isn’t a set of tools. It’s a different kind of firm.
One where AI runs through the work we do for you, not alongside it. One where our professionals show up to every engagement with capabilities they didn’t have before.
We didn’t start by asking how to adopt AI. We asked what we wanted to become and what that would mean for every client we serve. That question changed everything.
The question most firms are getting wrong
The professional services industry is responding to AI the way it responds to most disruption: announce an initiative, license a platform, declare transformation. Then wonder why nothing changed.
The problem isn’t the technology. AI layered on top of how you already work doesn’t transform anything. It accelerates it. If what you’re accelerating is mediocre, you get faster mediocrity.
The firms getting this right aren’t asking how to adopt AI. They’re asking what AI makes possible that wasn’t possible before and building toward that.
The firms getting this right aren’t asking how to adopt AI. They’re asking what AI makes possible that wasn’t possible before and building toward that.
What we built and what it made us
Over the past several years, Kaufman Rossin has built an AI program from the inside out. We build proprietary solutions where differentiation matters. We deploy market-leading platforms where the market already has the advantage. Both. Not one or the other. The discipline is knowing the difference and having the expertise to make that call.
But the tools are not the point. The point is what they enable.
Our professionals don’t just use AI. They think differently because of it.
They ask sharper questions. They see patterns across engagements that weren’t visible before. They spend less time on what slows them down and more time on what only they can do.
That’s not automation. That’s evolution.
We don’t start by asking how AI makes us faster. We start by asking what it takes to make us and our clients better. Those are different questions. Only one changes outcomes.
When your engagement team reviews a document, models a scenario, or prepares a deliverable, that shift is in the room. The analysis is sharper. The questions are better. The guidance arrives earlier.
What you’re getting isn’t the same firm with a new tool. It’s a firm that has used AI to become more of what it always was: a trusted advisor and a force multiplier for its people.
What AI means for your business
What do you want your business to become — and what will it take to get there?
Every organization we work with is somewhere on this path. Some are just starting. Some are further along than they think. Some have the tools but haven’t connected them to what actually matters: what their people are capable of and what their business can become.
The starting point is different. The question is the same. What do you want to enable? New skills. New ways of working. New capacity for the people who drive your business forward.
AI doesn’t create those things. But deployed deliberately, with the right guidance, it can remove the barriers between your people and what they’re actually capable of.
Agentic AI: where this is going and how fast
We are still early in what AI will ultimately change for business. What exists today is not the ceiling. Agentic AI is arriving faster than most organizations are prepared for. Systems that don’t just respond to prompts, but complete multi-step tasks, reason across data, and make decisions.
McKinsey’s 2025 State of AI research report found that fewer than 10% of organizations are scaling AI agents in any single business function — even as the technology itself is ready to deploy. The organizations building governance and fluency now will be positioned to use it. The ones waiting will be catching up in a game that doesn’t slow down.
This won’t reward speed alone. It will reward clarity, discipline, and the ability to build deliberately. That is where we have been focused. And it is what we are positioned to help you do.
The firms that will lead in an AI-enabled world are not the ones with the most tools. They are the ones that have made a clear decision about what those tools are meant to enable. Not speed for its own sake. Not efficiency as an endpoint. Capability.
Better questions. Earlier insight. More time spent where judgment actually matters. More room for people to operate at the top of their expertise instead of below it.
AI does not create great organizations. It reveals them. It amplifies what is already there and removes what was getting in the way. Used reactively, it accelerates noise. Used deliberately, it unlocks potential that was always just out of reach.
So the question is not whether to adopt AI. That decision has already been made by the market.
The question is what you are trying to enable.
If the answer is clear, the path becomes clearer. If it isn’t, no amount of technology will compensate for it.
Because in the end, AI is not the advantage.
What you enable with it is.
Frequently Asked Questions
How is AI already affecting my engagement with Kaufman Rossin?
Meaningfully. AI is embedded in how our professionals work — not as a shortcut, but as an enablement layer that makes them more capable. Faster turnaround, sharper analysis, earlier and more proactive guidance. The relationship is the same. What your professionals are able to do within it has evolved and continues to.
Is my data safe in Kaufman Rossin’s AI-enabled environment?
Yes, and we’re specific about why. We use the Enterprise plans of both ChatGPT and Claude — the highest security tiers available. But our own internal AI policy goes further: no employee is permitted to upload or process any document containing Personally Identifiable Information into any AI-powered system. That’s not a platform requirement. That’s ours. The confidentiality obligations that have governed your engagement with us for decades apply to every AI system we use, without exception.
Can Kaufman Rossin help us think through AI for our own organization?
Our dedicated professionals have experience helping businesses in a variety of industries leverage technology to improve business performance, create new products or services, and gain a competitive edge through digital transformation.
Further, what we’ve learned building and deploying AI inside Kaufman Rossin transfers to every client relationship we have. We help our clients develop thoughtful AI strategies for their own organizations, grounded in what we’ve tested, refined, and validated ourselves. Strategic innovation empowers us to focus on providing insights that matter most, amplifying expertise to drive long-term growth and value for our clients. We’re practitioners and advisors first, and helping clients navigate AI adoption in their own organizations is a natural extension of our trusted advisor role.
What should we be doing right now to prepare for where AI is headed?
Start by answering a different question than “how should we use AI?” Ask what you want your organization to be capable of that it isn’t today, and work backward from there. AI is the most powerful enablement tool most businesses have ever had access to. Used deliberately, it doesn’t just make you more efficient. It changes what’s possible. Build fluency before you build infrastructure. Ask hard questions of every vendor. And work with advisors who have the experience to help you navigate what’s ahead.
Albert Primo, CPA, is the Chief Innovation Officer at Kaufman Rossin, one of the Top 50 CPA and advisory firms in the U.S.
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