[Canada] AI adoption creating an advisory opportunity for accounting professionals

According to new research, nearly 7 in 10 Canadian small and medium businesses (SMBs) now use AI regularly, up from 52 per cent in 2024, Canadian Accountant reports.

The Intuit QuickBooks 2026 AI Impact Report found that many of those businesses began incorporating AI in the last eighteen months. 

A notable share of that adoption reportedly touches financial data, so maintaining awareness is more important than ever.

Businesses stated that they use AI most in marketing, customer service, and admin: areas where speed matters and outputs can be perceived as easy to review. However, these front office tasks can affect the back office fast. Follow-ups impact AR, customer communication impacts retention, and admin impacts how quickly work gets done and billed.  

Beyond the top 3 AI tasks, nearly 3 in 10 Canadian businesses reported using AI to support bookkeeping, suggesting that AI-assisted inputs are entering the workflow. Such a change means professional review, documentation, and judgment are more, not less, valuable.  

Three key barriers are reportedly stopping Canadian SMBs from more extensive AI adoption:

• Privacy and security concerns (36 per cent)

• Lack of knowledge (30 per cent)

• Fear of bias/errors (26 per cent)

Canadian Accountant notes that these are concerns which demand trust and accountability: the accountant’s value proposition. 

"What we're seeing in the data is that Canadian SMBs are increasingly confident in AI's ability to improve productivity, but they still want human oversight when decisions carry financial or operational risk," Simon Worsfold - Head of Data Communications at Intuit - said. "That creates an important role for accounting professionals as businesses look to adopt AI more confidently and strategically.

Source: Canadian Accountant

(Link and quote via original reporting)

According to new research, nearly 7 in 10 Canadian small and medium businesses (SMBs) now use AI regularly, up from 52 per cent in 2024, Canadian Accountant reports.

The Intuit QuickBooks 2026 AI Impact Report found that many of those businesses began incorporating AI in the last eighteen months. 

A notable share of that adoption reportedly touches financial data, so maintaining awareness is more important than ever.

Businesses stated that they use AI most in marketing, customer service, and admin: areas where speed matters and outputs can be perceived as easy to review. However, these front office tasks can affect the back office fast. Follow-ups impact AR, customer communication impacts retention, and admin impacts how quickly work gets done and billed.  

Beyond the top 3 AI tasks, nearly 3 in 10 Canadian businesses reported using AI to support bookkeeping, suggesting that AI-assisted inputs are entering the workflow. Such a change means professional review, documentation, and judgment are more, not less, valuable.  

Three key barriers are reportedly stopping Canadian SMBs from more extensive AI adoption:

• Privacy and security concerns (36 per cent)

• Lack of knowledge (30 per cent)

• Fear of bias/errors (26 per cent)

Canadian Accountant notes that these are concerns which demand trust and accountability: the accountant’s value proposition. 

"What we're seeing in the data is that Canadian SMBs are increasingly confident in AI's ability to improve productivity, but they still want human oversight when decisions carry financial or operational risk," Simon Worsfold - Head of Data Communications at Intuit - said. "That creates an important role for accounting professionals as businesses look to adopt AI more confidently and strategically.

Source: Canadian Accountant

(Link and quote via original reporting)