Monday Morning Accounting News Brief: Is AI in Big 4 a Big Deal?; Consulting Isn’t For Everyone, Or Most People Really | 5.25.26

AI in Big 4 May Be Bigger Than It Appears

There was a thread on r/Big4 over the weekend that I found really interesting. OP set it up to roast Big 4 about their AI naivete but it ended up being a bunch of people across the industry talking about how they’re actually using AI right now.

Post text:

Would you agree that Big4 pretends to be using AI internally but instead are far behind in terms of usage ?

Doing little prompt for emails and getting comments on a slide deck is most of what people do.

Almost no one is using Claude Cowork or anything, but they still pretend to be using it and leveraging it.

I don’t think anyone actually believes Big 4 is on the cutting edge of AI, that’s sort of besides the point. But here’s one specific example of someone getting utility out of these tools:

And another, with a bonus dig at Reddit’s strongly anti-AI attitude:

Just make sure you’re checking and double-checking those outputs, y’all.

And here’s a related post that went up yesterday: Claude is already doing all of everyone’s work, how much longer will a consultant be needed in the loop?. Like the first post, the opinions on that vary from “lmao” to “Anyone who thinks this won’t majorly affect the big 4 model has got their head in the sand.”

The conversation would be very different if the Big 4 model hadn’t already been disrupted by offshoring years ago.

Industry Accountant Gone Wild (Allegedly)

Here’s a little Accountants (allegedly) Behaving Badly story from CBS News:

A Texas-based corporate accountant was recently indicted by a Denver federal grand jury for allegedly shifting more than $3 million to her personal accounts while handling transactions on behalf of two Colorado companies.

Emily Merrill spent the money on airfare and hotels, retail purchases, a luxury Swiss watch and vehicles, according to a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, District of Colorado.

And that DoJ press release:

According to the indictment, between July 2021 and November 2024, Merrill worked as both an accounting manager and controller of a Lafayette, Colorado, based company. During that time, it is alleged that Merrill devised and participated in a scheme to obtain money and property from her employer through completing unauthorized financial transactions, altering company bank statements, controlling access to credit card statements, fabricating documents, and communicating misleading financial information.

Additionally the indictment says, between April 2025 and December 2025, Merrill worked as a financial controller for a Denver, Colorado, based company. During that time, it is alleged that Merrill further devised and participated in a similar scheme to wrongfully obtain money and property from her employer.

Through both schemes and a variety of transactions, the indictment alleges Merrill took over $3 million dollars. It is also alleged that fraud proceeds were spent on items such as airfare and hotels, retail stores, a luxury watch, and vehicles, including a BMW, a Ford F150, and a motor home.

A few more details in the Denver Post version:

In one instance, the company’s chief operating officer asked Merrill to make a loan payment of $300,000 to a financial institution, and Merrill deposited that amount into her own personal account, the indictment alleges.

Merrill falsely told other employees that only one person could be an administrator on the credit card account to conceal her fraudulent payments from others.

And they believed her?

KPMG Making an Exit?

KPMG may be leaving Bangladesh, Egypt, and Pakistan. I say “may” because this picture of a screen posted to r/ACCA is a bit sketchy.

There’s a news article too, though admittedly I am not a longtime subscriber to Financial Express so can’t speak to its reliability:

Big Four accounting firm KPMG is set to exit Bangladesh after nearly 60 years of operations in the country.

The firm has also decided to withdraw from Egypt and Pakistan as part of a broader global restructuring of its operations.

In Bangladesh, KPMG has long operated through its local affiliate, Rahman Rahman Huq (RRH).

The KPMG Global Board has already approved the separation process, which is expected to be completed by September 30, sources say.

Guess we’ll have to see if FT picks it up to know for sure. Or just wait until September. KPMG will probably have to make an announcement soon to quell any buzz, clients hate rumors flying around.

The Path to Consulting Is Fraught With Peril

Lastly, let’s cover something from the digital student paper at Northwestern: Do I want to be a consultant or do I want to do something meaningful?

Bit of a long read for those of you with short attention spans. TLDR: Naya Yazigi, who was born and raised in Syria, talks about the culture shock of coming up against the doors through which future consultants must march on their way to their careers.

Somehow, by the spring of my freshman year, I started thinking about majoring in the unthinkable. But I reached a firm conclusion quite quickly: at Northwestern, you major in economics to get into consulting. Sometimes it’s to get into business, other times it’s investment banking or finance. Pre-professional clubs seem to be the only accepted currencies for those hoping to afford their dreams after graduation.

…

The obsession with these clubs isn’t a fluke; it’s a symptom of Northwestern’s academic architecture. As former Medill Professor Jonathan Copulsky pointed out to me, Northwestern’s lack of an undergraduate business school creates a void that students feel they must fill themselves. Without a formal business stamp on our transcripts, we look for other ways to show recruiters our aptitude and ability. We have outsourced our professional development to student-run organizations, turning extracurriculars into a shadow-curriculum.

This leads to an emphasis on what economist Michael Spence called “signaling,” where people pursue credentials even when the learning itself isn’t the main goal. We aren’t joining these clubs because we are dying to analyze a mid-market manufacturing firm; we are joining them because we think the name on our resume serves as an “I am vetted” seal.

Worth a read if you’ve got a few minutes and can relate to this kind of soul-searching, particularly if you are not from certain backgrounds that make navigating those spaces infinitely easier.