Covering sentiments from 434 accountants and bookkeepers, the State of AI Report 2025 tracks current AI integration trajectories of accounting practices across Australia.
The coming year will see how AI could reshape accounting, the report reveals, as the majority of accounting firms are set to adopt both embedded AI tools and standalone AI tech solutions in their operations over the next 12 months, with at least 28% of firms expecting full utility in the latter half of 2026.
Key stats you need to know
- Practice-wide AI rollout is expected by at least 28% of firms within the next 12 months, across all use cases.
- Marketing and proposal support is the top use case poised for AI adoption in 2026 with 40% of firms eyeing deployment.
- 27% of firms see AI-assisted document extraction and processing in the next 3 to 6 months.
Clerical, marketing applications targeted for immediate AI integration
- 27% of accountants say their practices are likely to implement AI-assisted document extraction and processing in the next 3 to 6 months.
- 1 in 4 firms see near-term AI-supported transaction reconciliation to materialise.
- 22% expect the same for marketing applications within the next 6 months.
In the near-term, firms are optimistic that AI will ease their workloads by automating simpler tasks such as document extraction/processing and transaction reconciliation. Similarly, accountants expect immediate AI adoption for marketing/proposal support, which would allow them to rechannel efforts to improve business materials rather than building from scratch, block by block.
These top use cases all share considerable efficiency gains all while carrying minimal concerns for errors and inaccuracies, as they are mostly rule-based, repetitive tasks that are easier to automate.
“Firms now have their eyes on quick efficiency gains at minimal risk. Over the next 3 to 6 months, early AI adopters are set to build AI confidence and potentially get ahead,” said Michael Johnson, Director at Agile Market Intelligence.
AI set to streamline most accounting operations in the next 12 months
- The majority of firms are on a 12-month timeline for scaled AI rollout.
- Marketing/proposal support (40%) and workflow/task automation (36%) lead adoption commitments over the next 12 months.
- Firms also anticipate AI support in more complex tasks such as tax research/ATO monitoring (33%) and drafting client communications (32%).
Leading parallel AI adoption commitments over the next 12 months are marketing/proposal support (40%), workflow/task automation (36%), and knowledge management/sharing and transaction coding/reconciliations (both 35%).
Tax research/ATO monitoring and drafting client communications also closely follow at 33% and 32%, respectively, with firms likely using the extended timeline to explore emerging AI tools and work on the ins and outs of integrating these solutions in higher-value-adding areas.
“Our findings point to two things: what matters to firms and what they believe is possible, ” said Michael Johnson. “With AI finding more and more use cases for support or automation, firms who invest time to learn the ropes early on are poised to lead the industry by channeling their resources on tailoring their core services to clients and strengthening their relationships.”
About the research
The State of AI Report 2026 was commissioned by The Access Group and conducted by Agile Market Intelligence. It maps out AI adoption, risks and barriers holding back adoption, and the practical use cases already delivering value today. The report captures the sentiments of 434 accountants, bookkeepers and other accounting professionals across Australia around their experiences of artificial intelligence in their practice. Responses were collected between 9th of September and 13th of October 2025.
You can download the report here.
