Remy Blaire: The audit and advisory profession is facing a massive transformation as AI moves from novelty to necessity. And a new survey of 400 audit and advisory leaders reveals a dramatic divide. Firms going all in on agentic AI are seeing higher margins and stronger retention, while casual users are stumbling over client concerns as well as quality control.
And joining me to weigh in on tech, audit, as well as advisory here at the New York Stock Exchange is Jin Chang, CEO and co-founder of Fieldguide. Jin, great to have you here. Thank you so much for joining me.
Jin Chang: Of course, Remy. Thanks for having us.
Remy Blaire: So first and foremost, tell me about the problem that you are trying to solve with Fieldguide.
Jin Chang: So the audit and advisory profession is incredibly important to the capital markets because these are the people who provide trust between businesses and their stakeholders. Unfortunately, the population of auditors is dwindling.
So Fieldguide's main purpose is to help these audit and advisory practitioners do the best work of their careers, really helping these CPA firms grow and build sustainable businesses despite the talent shortage.
Remy Blaire: Yeah, and Jin, of course, when we're talking about people in this field, we know that burnout is common. But when it comes to the role of artificial intelligence, you also need a human in the equation as well.
And you and your team come from a Big Four background. So tell us what's working and where the opportunity is.
Jin Chang: Yes. So at Fieldguide, what we've done is mapped out the entire end-to-end workflow ontology and figured out what are the parts of the workflow that should be automated with agentic AI, and where are the moments where expert humans have that accountability to make expert judgment calls and interact as more of a client advisor to their clients.
So at Fieldguide, yes, we have an excellent product team that blends the best of both Big Four expertise but also Silicon Valley engineering pros. And we found a really great balance to solve this problem.
Remy Blaire: So when it comes to implementation, what should firms know right now?
Jin Chang: So, you know, what's really exciting about the current moment is, you know, I just came back from our company's user conference in Atlanta, and the main talk of the show was everyone believes in AI, everyone is investing in AI, but not everyone is finding the best uses.
So, you know, what's interesting is many of the same software change management issues of cloud, and even on-prem prior to that, still apply today. Finding the right use cases, having visionary leadership, training your professionals properly, and having more and more kind of on-the-job reskilling.
Remy Blaire: And finally, less than 60 seconds here. But for firms that are still looking before dipping their toes in the water, what would you say is the risk of waiting another few months or a year?
Jin Chang: So what we found year over year is we are at a tipping point. About half of the profession, or half of the industry, is already what we call active deployers. These are the firms who are incorporating agentic AI along the entire lifecycle.
And what we're seeing is the gap between active deployers and more passive deployers of AI. We are seeing the gap between profitability, growth and client satisfaction could just continue to compound.
Remy Blaire: Well, Jin, it was great having you here at the New York Stock Exchange. Thank you so much for sharing the story behind Fieldguide.
Jin Chang: Thanks, Remy.
Remy Blaire: Thank you.
