There were a couple stories of note in India’s The Finance Story in recent days, one of which we included in Footnotes last Friday so you may have seen it. Let’s start with that one.
In “AI killing offshore accounting? Nope…Citrin Cooperman just tripled India hiring,” Executive Managing Director of Citrin Cooperman India Vishal Agarwal writes confidently:
India is one of the top two priorities for our Board. (And I’m seeing the same trend across the industry.)
Then explains how, in his view, the model is changing:
Earlier, the focus was largely on getting the low-hanging fruit done in India. Today, we’re not just preparing.
- We’re reviewing.
- We’re signing off on deliverables.
- We’re communicating with clients.
In many cases, work is being completed end-to-end in India without needing US intervention.
And we’re building much deeper industry specialisation—financial services, automotive, and more.
Then he explains the plan, as he sees it:
AI is already automating parts of what junior professionals do today.
Say a task needs five people today. AI brings that down to two. The other three aren’t redundant; they’re available. So we pull more work from the U.S. into India.
That frees up the U.S. team to focus on what drives real revenue: client work, advisory, and growth.
Every rung moves up…if they’re willing to.
Sorry for the obnoxious LinkedIn Lunatic spacing on those quotes, we kept it to how it’s formatted on the original post.
For the second article, we have “Offshore US CPA Firms’ new AI reality: No panic firing, but no lazy hiring” which taps Armanino Managing Director Shrenik Shah, PKF O’ Connor Davies India Tax Practice Leader Ishita Doshi, and Vishal the Citrin Cooperman guy from the first article for quotes. We’ll get the quote with him first:
Not a single Indian leader we spoke to believes AI will wipe out the offshore accounting model.
And no! It’s not because they are being optimistic…But because it’s structurally impossible.
As Vishal Agarwal, Executive MD at Citrin Cooperman India ($985Mn in revenue in 2025), puts it:
“If everything gets done by AI, then not only India, but even the U.S. firms would be wiped out. Clients would go straight to AI.”
Then they explain that AI is already doing quite a bit:
The ‘repetitive layer of offshore work’ is being automated faster than expected.
As Ishita Doshi, India Tax Practice Leader at PKF O’ Connor Davies, explains: “Earlier, we handled a large volume of individual tax returns. Now, all of them are automated. Even junior-level professionals are now expected to think critically.”
Vishal sees the same shift in data work. AI is reducing manual effort in mapping, transformation, and tax research.
Shrenik is blunt: “If today there are five people involved in one project, there may be three in three years.”
Ishita’s team already lives this reality. K-1 data entry, historically an hours-long seasonal nightmare, now takes minutes.
The whole article is worth a read honestly because it’s pretty blunt about what’s happening over there from their perspective. For example:
In tax specifically, Ishita notes a clear shift: “As automation removes preparer-level work, firms are hiring seniors, supervisors, and managers who can review work, interpret regulations, and support US partners directly.
And:
As Ishita puts it: “There wouldn’t be any difference between the onshore and offshore teams in the near future.” Shrenik and Vishal echo the same view.
India doesn’t become irrelevant…India becomes the team.
You are free to discuss in the comments as always.
