The challenge
Small and mid-size accounting firms were hearing the same advice from every direction: adopt AI faster. The advice ignored the defining trait of the profession, a deliberate and well-placed skepticism. Firms needed a way to adopt technology on their own terms, without dismissing AI and without over-trusting it.
The approach
I built the package around a reframe: treat professional caution as an asset and design adoption around it. The anchor is a primary research paper, supported by tools a firm can put to work the same week: a vendor-evaluation checklist, a where-do-I-start guide, a discussion guide for firm leaders, and a quick-start list of actions.
At the center is the AI Trust & Usage Quadrant, which maps people on two axes: how much they use AI, and how much they trust it. Each quadrant is a different starting point, and each needs a different first move.
Licensed nationally
Six state CPA organizations have licensed and rebranded the package for their own members.
The results
The package shipped as a published report with supporting tools, blog content, infographics, and video. Six state CPA organizations license and rebrand it for their members, and a companion one-hour CPE webinar built from the research runs on the national state-society circuit.
What I learned
The reframe did the heavy lifting. Research that treats skepticism as professional judgment gets a hearing that another adopt-faster report never would. Firms listened because the work respected how they already make decisions.