What happened
Thomson Reuters released the fourth annual Future of Professionals Report on 22 June 2026, based on a global survey of 1,816 professionals across 62 countries in the legal, tax, audit, accounting, compliance, and risk fields. The headline finding is stark: "91% of professionals believe their organisations are falling short of what AI can deliver," producing an "AI value gap" that is now materialising as financial risk — with up to $143 billion in U.S. client revenue under active reconsideration based on AI delivery, and 24% of mid-career professionals considering leaving within two years if AI fails to deliver. The report identifies three compounding failure modes: shadow AI (one-third of lawyers, accountants, and compliance professionals using unsanctioned tools), a strategy-to-execution gap (35% say AI ambitions are not reflected in day-to-day work), and a client-expectation mismatch (78% of corporate clients call AI-enabled quality improvements essential, yet only 6% say most providers deliver). Thomson Reuters frames the solution as "Fiduciary-Grade AI" — AI grounded in authoritative content, with transparent, verifiable outputs.
Why it matters
Professional services firms and their in-house legal, tax, and compliance counterparts face a concrete, quantified business risk: client attrition and talent loss are no longer hypothetical if AI execution gaps persist. CEOs and managing partners need this data to justify accelerating AI operationalisation beyond pilots and to set board-level accountability for closing the strategy-to-execution gap.
Action needed
Assess whether AI strategy ownership sits with P&L leaders (not just technology leaders), audit shadow AI exposure across legal, tax, and compliance functions, and brief the CEO and board on the $143 billion revenue-at-risk benchmark as a forcing function for accelerating AI governance maturity.