AI won’t replace accounting platforms - it will make them more important

The market is spooked by AI. I understand the anxiety. But I think the conclusion many people are drawing is backwards — AI advances don’t make systems of record less relevant. They make them more important.

I’ve seen this movie before. AI-native startups are raising billions with promises to rebuild everything from scratch. Some investors are now asking whether enterprise platforms face an existential threat. When we started Intacct 25 years ago, we were convinced cloud accounting would flip the market in a year or two. Multi-tenant cloud accounting really was a step-change. We were right about the direction. We were naive about the timeline. What I underestimated wasn’t the technology. It was trust.

How hard it is to earn customer confidence. How long it takes for businesses to trust you with their financials. And how much patient, hands-on work is required to build an ecosystem of partners ...