After at least two decades of accounting firms insisting they are at the forefront of technology adoption battling against more than a century of accounting firms doing the same things they’ve always done the way they’ve always done them, the future is now unfolding in front of us. In this case, it’s OpenAI teaming up with Thrive to automate accounting services.
According to the press release, accounting is a good place to start and will serve as the model for other industries should they pull this off:
OpenAI and Thrive Holdings are partnering to accelerate enterprise AI adoption.
Thrive Holdings invests in, acquires, and builds businesses that benefit from long-term, technology-driven transformation.
OpenAI and Thrive Holdings will work together to drive direct, scalable impact across core enterprise operations. The initial focus is accounting and IT services because these functions run high-volume, rules-driven, workflow-heavy processes where OpenAI’s platform can drive immediate benefits.
OpenAI will embed research, product, and engineering teams inside Thrive Holdings’ companies to boost speed, accuracy, and cost efficiency while strengthening service quality. The work will establish a repeatable model that can expand across other industries.
Forgive us if we don’t get overly excited about this prospect what with the profession’s entry level ladder having been burnt to a crisp in just the last few years, something like 70% of work being sent overseas, half the top 20 in the hands of private equity, and various other efforts to enshittify the accounting profession well under way. Anyway, obligatory press release quotes:
“AI is redefining how enterprises are built and deliver value for customers,” said Brad Lightcap, COO of OpenAI. “This partnership with Thrive Holdings is about demonstrating what’s possible when frontier AI research and deployment are rapidly deployed across entire organizations to revolutionize how businesses work and engage with customers. We hope this partnership serves as a model for how businesses and industries around the world can deeply partner with OpenAI.”
“We are excited to extend our partnership with OpenAI to embed their frontier models, products, and services into sectors we believe have tremendous potential to benefit from technological innovation and adoption,” said Joshua Kushner, CEO and founder of Thrive Capital and Thrive Holdings. “Historically, technology transformed industries from the outside in. We believe this paradigm shift will happen from the inside out as domain experts and practitioners use AI as a native tool to reshape their fields. The businesses we acquire represent the right reward systems for this evolution, bringing together industry expertise and real-world data that can help improve models on specific tasks and capabilities.”
TechCrunch explains more about the arrangement in less jargony language here: OpenAI’s investment into Thrive Holdings is its latest circular deal
Surely theres no risk to giving OpenAI all of your companys data
The amount of buzzwords in this pitch written by Open AI must have been generated by Chat GPT
Things have gone from bad to worse is this profession…what I don’t get is why younger senior managers and principals don’t simply walk out and start their own practices. They are the ones doing all the work anyway
As per usual AICPA is sleeping on the wheel….