There’s a particular kind of relief that comes from hearing someone in the same position as you say, out loud: “I don’t have this figured out either.” That moment kept repeating itself at the inaugural Wagepoint Summit in Calgary. We brought together Canadian accountants and bookkeepers for a day of honest conversation about AI in accounting, the profession, and what comes next. What we’d built as a learning event became something more important: a space where peers could trust each other enough to get honest with themselves.
That kind of moment, it turns out, is rarer than it should be.
Why peer trust is the resource nobody talks about
Accountants and bookkeepers spend most of their days as the trusted advisor in the room. The ones clients come to with hard questions and problems that they need answers to. It’s a position that doesn’t leave much room to say “I’m not sure” out loud.
Right now, though, the profession is facing a moment where “I’m not sure” is the most honest answer firm owners can give. AI is moving fast. The pressure to adopt — or at least to have a position — is coming from leads, existing clients, competitors, and staff. But the path for AI in accounting isn’t obvious, and the stakes feel high.
In that environment, the most valuable thing isn’t another thought leadership article. It’s a conversation with someone who’s actually in it. Someone who runs a practice, serves clients like yours, and is genuinely wrestling with the same questions.
That was exactly the kind of conversation Wagepoint Summit was built to make room for.
“The pace of AI means everyone in this profession is learning as they go. Credibility no longer comes from having every answer. It comes from engaging honestly with the uncertainty and helping clients navigate it with confidence.”
—Ranjit (Ran) Nalwa, Senior Partner Manager
What the conversations actually looked like
After an eye-opening keynote from Clayton Achen, CPA, CA, TEP, the day’s tone was set. Clayton didn’t come with a polished case study or a tidy framework (although his story is a pretty impressive one!). Instead, he came with a candid account of what AI adoption actually looks like from inside a firm: the experiments, the discomfort, the staff conversations, and the compounding advantages he’s already seeing. It was the kind of honesty that gives a room permission to be honest back. The roundtable discussions that followed were built on that foundation.
Each table was led by a member of the Wagepoint team and designed to surface the questions firm owners are hesitant to ask themselves. These weren’t panels. Nobody was performing expertise. Groups were asked about the gap between official AI policy and what’s actually happening at their firm, about whether adoption of AI within accounting feels like opportunity or loss, about the honest internal narrative driving their decisions. You can’t answer those questions with a rehearsed take.
“You could feel the shift once people realized they didn’t have to present a perfect AI strategy. The conversation became much more practical and much more honest. People were talking about what was actually happening inside their firms.”
—Jim McCreath, VP Finance
The cost of falling behind with AI
Clayton’s keynote theme ran as a thread through the peer discussions: there’s a window, early movers are building compounding advantages right now, and a service business without an AI strategy is a less sellable one and less attractive to the younger generation of business owners. The roundtable didn’t let people sit with that passively — it asked them to test it against their own reality.
The sharpest question: what’s the story your firm is telling itself about why it hasn’t moved faster? Is it genuinely cautious stewardship, or is it fear dressed up as prudence? That’s a question you can only answer in a room where people trust each other enough to answer it. These difficult questions challenged participants to test their internal narratives against the shifting landscape of the profession.
The gap between official AI policy and reality
What came out of those tables was a mix of candour and recognition.
Many firms are sitting with a gap between their official stance on AI and the reality of what their staff are doing (AKA shadow AI). Not recklessly, but because the tools work, and waiting for a formal policy means sitting still while the competition moves ahead.
Hearing that other firms were navigating the same grey area made the challenge feel less like a personal failure and more like a professional moment everyone is working through together.
Glenn Ekron, Director of Partner Services, captured that tension clearly:
“While we appreciate that paid tiers generally include confidentiality provisions, we remain uncertain whether those protections fully prevent our data, and our clients’ data, from being used in ways we have not knowingly authorized.”
—Glenn Ekron, Director of Partner Services
On what it means to be good at your job when AI does more of it
Another topic went somewhere more personal: whether the shift toward reviewing, prompting, and interpreting AI-generated accounting outputs feels like a more skilled version of your role — or a diminished one — and whether clients would see it the same way.
Some responses carried real uncertainty about the craft of technical accounting work, the deep knowledge built over years, and the mentorship structures that grew out of doing hard things by hand. Others held genuine excitement about removing the monotony and making room for advisory work. We didn’t find a silver bullet, nor were we looking for one. Rather, we acknowledged the insecurity honestly, in a room full of people who understood it from the inside.
“One of the most thought-provoking themes to emerge from my discussions was the connection between trust, judgment, and experience. Attendees grappled with whether the professional judgment traditionally developed through years of hands-on work can still be cultivated — and recognized by clients — as automation takes on more of the tasks that once helped build it.”
—Adam Khan, VP of Sales
What peer conversation makes possible
We found answers that worked for some in the room. Others probably left with more questions. But the most valuable thing to come out of the day was the importance of earnest conversation and collaboration amongst peers. When professionals who are used to being the expert in the room get permission to not have it figured out, the posture changes. People stop performing confidence and start seeing a more accurate picture of where the profession is actually at.
That kind of clarity is hard to get from a podcast or a webinar. When we’re together, sharing, questioning, building off each other, every conversation like that is a deposit into the kind of trust that makes the whole community stronger.
“It was refreshing how open everyone was. It gave people a chance to share what they’re seeing, compare ideas, and realize they’re not the only ones working through the same challenges. That kind of honest conversation builds trust, and that’s exactly what we want as we continue building our toolbox together.”
—Quinn Werbowski, Partner Specialist
This is the community we’re building
The formal programming ended with happy hour and a sit-down dinner. The conversations didn’t.
New connections were made across firms and regions. Business cards were exchanged and contact information was shared. It was the perfect night cap for a day rich with sharp perspectives, practical insights, and conversations that will carry well beyond the room because they’d spent a day building genuine rapport.
The Summit was one day. The community it’s part of is ongoing — accountants and bookkeepers who are thinking seriously about the future of their practices, and who believe that thinking out loud together is more useful than figuring it out alone.
And we’re always open to another perspective around the table.
Payroll professionals, both Wagepoint partners and the broader community, are welcome to join for free here: Canada’s Payroll Collective
