KPMG set a firm-wide target of 75% AI usage. Employees hit it by asking the model what the weather was. Separately, only 42% of organizations say they can audit the AI decisions built into their finance workflows. Those two numbers point to the same gap: clearing your AI targets doesn't mean the work is any better.

The Signal  — Adoption rates measure activity, not results. A high usage number reassures partners that AI is working, even when client work goes untouched. The 42% auditability figure is the sharper problem: if a client or regulator asks which outputs AI touched, most firms can't answer. That's not a technology gap. It's a control gap. What to watch: The governance question coming next is output logs. Who used the tool matters less than what it produced and whether a human reviewed it before it left the firm.

A Blue J and CPA.com survey says AI adoption among tax firms nearly doubled year over year. Worth reading with the source in mind — Blue J sells AI research tools to the same firms it surveyed.

Cisco research found frontier AI models are more exposed to multi-turn prompt attacks than vendors acknowledge. Finance teams using AI on client data should know: attacks that spread across multiple turns bypass the defenses vendors typically test for.

Gartner says finance AI projects succeed only about half the time, with top teams using four specific practices to beat those odds. If you're planning a rollout, the 50% base rate is worth knowing going in.

Vermont, Missouri and Louisiana passed bills reducing the educational barriers to CPA licensing. The 150-hour rule has kept qualified candidates out for years — these three states are treating it as a pipeline problem, not a quality safeguard.

The SEC formally proposed rescinding its 2024 climate disclosure rules, which required public companies to report material climate risks in filings. CPAs advising public companies should flag the comment period — it's open now.

The White House signed a revised AI executive order after weeks of rewrites. It's narrower than early drafts, focused on innovation and national security — the broader oversight frameworks didn't survive.

MIT Technology Review maps where small business AI holds up and where it doesn't. Good for CPAs advising owner-operated clients on what to hand off and what to keep checking.

IBM Research argues raw model capability isn't the bottleneck for enterprise AI adoption — workflow orchestration and agent logic are. Worth reading for any firm trying to get AI past the prompt-and-paste stage.

Gusto Cofounder (gusto.com)

Gusto launched Gusto Cofounder, an AI teammate inside its payroll platform that answers payroll questions, sends compliance nudges and handles routine tasks for small business owners. If your small business clients are already on Gusto, they'll see it soon. Worth knowing what it does before they ask.

The wait is over. Whispers of Nystad is out now. A historical thriller where a coded letter can end a war. Follow Elsa across a frozen Baltic frontier as empires collide and every message carries a price. Available in paperback and ebook.

New tools and web apps are rolling out. See what's live and what is next.

Answer 16 questions about what you love, what you're good at, what the world needs and what you can be paid for. Nexairi Wayfinder maps the overlaps and tells you exactly what it means for your career.

That's the dispatch.

If something here changed how you think this week, hit reply and tell me. I read every one.

— Jim

Jim Smart  ·  Founder, Nexairi

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