Key facts

• An international accounting and advisory network held its second Technology & Innovation Symposium in Barcelona, shifting the focus from discussing AI to building practical tools.
• The network’s chief innovation officer said AI use in professional services has concentrated on efficiency, but the bigger opportunity is improving quality and creating new ways of working.
• Member firms took part in a hackathon using no-code development and document-intelligence software to turn real-world professional-services problems into working prototypes.
• Leaders stressed that domain experts can innovate without becoming technologists, and that internal testing should precede client-facing deployment.
• Challenges include skills gaps, legacy-system integration, fast-changing models, a crowded vendor market, governance, data compliance, and billing models.
• Near-term opportunities remain in document review, data extraction, drafting, and analytical layers over audit and advisory work.

Artificial intelligence in professional services is reaching a turning point, with firms looking beyond using the technology simply to cut costs and save time. The next phase is about implementing applications that can improve the quality of audit and advisory work, according to the chief innovation officer of an international accounting and advisory network.

Speaking at the network’s Technology & Innovation Symposium in Barcelona, the chief innovation officer said the organization is encouraging member firms to move from discussing AI to building and testing practical tools that can be deployed across their businesses. The event brought member firms together for a hands-on programme that included an AI hackathon using a no-code platform and document-intelligence technology, with teams challenged to turn real-world professional-services problems into working prototypes.

From efficiency to quality

The symposium was the network’s second such event, following an earlier gathering in London. Organizers described the Barcelona edition as a significant evolution from the first. This year’s programme was built around a shift in emphasis: less discussion of AI in the abstract, and much more practical application building.

The event opened with a keynote from the director of a top football club’s innovation unit, who explained how AI is reshaping decision-making and performance at the club without compromising its footballing identity. The speaker illustrated that this is not just an accounting-firm conversation; it is happening across industries. Teams then moved from the keynote into the hackathon and straight into building applications.

Using AI for efficiency is still the main focus for many professional-services firms. They are streamlining operations, cutting costs, and saving people time on routine work. That matters. But the opportunity is starting to shift toward using AI to enhance quality, not just making processes faster but smarter, and finding genuinely new ways of doing things.

The chief innovation officer said the symposium was designed to give people the space to test that shift for themselves, applying tools to challenges they face in their work. The aim was to see which ideas have real potential to be taken forward and implemented across the network. More than anything, organizers wanted firms to leave feeling that they can innovate and that they can use AI even though they are not technologists by trade. They are domain experts, and that is exactly the starting point that matters.

Domain experts as builders

The afternoon hackathon had firms building tools aligned to real-world challenges professional-services firms face. Teams used a no-code platform and document-intelligence tools. The chief innovation officer said what stood out most was the change in how people approached the problem. There was real creativity coming out of domain experts when they were handed the right tools, people who know exactly where the friction is in their day-to-day work but would not normally call themselves builders.

The hackathon was structured deliberately for that outcome. Teams had time to get familiar with the challenge and the tool, then design a workflow before they started building, so the thinking came first. The no-code platform let teams prototype rapidly and walk away with something that actually worked. That practical experience was central to the event’s purpose.

It helped that teams had a concrete reference point before they built anything themselves. A member firm in Spain walked through its own AI roadmap earlier in the afternoon. The firm discussed an audit tool, an automated tax workflow, and a firm-wide training programme, plus the discipline behind how it tests new platforms. Its rule was simple: internal capability comes first, and client-facing work only follows once the firm has proven the idea on itself. That mindset carried into the hackathon. Pairing domain experts with technology tools turns out to be a reliable recipe for tackling almost any challenge, the chief innovation officer said.

Network-wide experimentation

The chief innovation officer said what was seen in Barcelona is genuinely representative of the shift across the network over the last few years. Firms are more open to change and innovation than they have ever been. They are experimenting with AI more than ever, and network leaders are actively championing that change. The event was not an isolated exercise in one city for one afternoon; it sits on top of a much wider pattern.

The network ran a research project with a university looking specifically at how AI is being used across member firms. The research gave a valuable picture of where adoption is happening and at what scale. Some leading firms are already going beyond automating processes and are building agents that act almost like copilots inside audit and advisory work. Because it is becoming easier to build solutions in-house, more firms are building first and buying off-the-shelf second. More AI-specific job titles are also appearing across the network, roles whose entire purpose is to sit with domain experts and help embed AI properly into how a firm works. Barcelona is one data point in a trend line that has been climbing steadily across the whole network.

From prototype to production

A 90-minute hackathon build is one thing. The realistic path from a prototype to something a firm actually uses with clients is another. The chief innovation officer said the answer is about lowering the barrier to entry for people who are not technologists by background. A domain expert does not need to become a developer to build something useful anymore.

That idea is not confined to a workshop setting. The network has a commercial relationship with the no-code platform that gives member firms a practical route to take prototypes into production. The member firm in Spain’s own roadmap is a useful template for the discipline that path requires: prove it internally, on real work, before putting it in front of a client. That is what stops a hackathon build from staying a novelty and turns it into something a firm can stand behind.

Goals, governance and skills

The network’s strategic objectives for AI and technology include using cutting-edge technology to support the delivery of high-quality service and shifting the conversation from internal operations toward external growth opportunities. Alongside that, the network is deliberately cultivating a culture of technology leadership and thought leadership across the professional-services sector, not just within individual firms but as a network-wide identity.

A single day in Barcelona is one visible expression of that, but it is the tip of something much bigger. The event exists inside a broader push: content development, speaker curation, and facilitation led centrally, with member firms hosting and contributing in turn. It is designed to build a genuine learning culture, enabling participants to get hands-on, share ideas with peers, and build real confidence with cutting-edge technology rather than just hearing about it. The symposium brings together the future leaders of member firms, which is arguably as important as anything built on the day itself.

The chief innovation officer identified three clusters of challenges for accountancy and advisory firms implementing AI. On the people side, firms face skillset gaps, a lack of formal training inside firms, and real fear around change and job displacement that needs to be addressed honestly rather than dismissed. On the technology side, integration with legacy systems is not always possible; the pace of change in underlying models makes it genuinely hard to keep up; and choosing the right tool from an increasingly crowded market is growing more complex.

Governance is the third cluster. Firms must make sure AI use lines up with internal compliance and regulatory expectations around data. They need to be clear-eyed about which processes are actually ready to be automated, which use cases make sense, and how all of this sits alongside the realities of hourly billing.

Where AI is most useful now

The opportunities, however, more than match those challenges. The most widespread and immediately useful applications are still in the efficiency layer: document review, data extraction, and drafting first versions of routine correspondence or reports. Those applications free up time that used to go into low-value manual work. That is the entry point for most firms, and it is where the return is fastest and easiest to prove.

Beyond that, there is real opportunity in AI as an analytical layer on top of audit and advisory work. It can help teams spot patterns or anomalies across much larger datasets than a person could realistically review. That sharpens the quality of the advice rather than just the speed of producing it. It also changes the nature of review work, moving professionals from manual checking toward interpretation, judgment, and client support.

There is an opportunity in talent too. Firms that can show they are genuinely building with AI, not just talking about it, have an edge in attracting the next generation of professionals who expect to work this way. That expectation is likely to grow as AI-specific roles become more common and as younger professionals look for employers that offer hands-on exposure to new tools.

Looking beyond Barcelona, the chief innovation officer said success a year from now would mean a few things. First, keeping the culture of experimentation alive and making sure the ideas that come out of days like this turn into live applications running in the business. Second, AI being used responsibly across the network as adoption scales. Third, keeping the focus on AI augmenting people, not replacing them.

Practically, the chief innovation officer would like to see the format keep evolving the way it already has between London and Barcelona: different host firms, different local flavour, but the same underlying ambition. That ambition is to bring the network together, build something real, and take it home. If next year’s symposium shows the same kind of jump seen from last year to this one, that would be success in itself.

Source: UKTN News