Seasoned Marketer: Marketing’s Role in the AI Culture Shift: Why This Era Belongs to the Seasoned Marketer

The conversation about technology in professional services has been about tools: which platform, which pilot, which vendor. But firms are learning that the hard part was never the software. Accounting is being reshaped on two fronts at once, and they are starting to collide.

On one side is the technology itself. According to CPA.com’s 2025 AI in Accounting Report, enterprise adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) in accounting jumped from 9% in 2024 to 41% in 2025, one of the sharpest climbs of any profession. Nearly half of accountants now use AI daily, more than three-quarters of firms plan to increase their investment, and more than half of firm leaders say a firm loses value if it doesn’t use AI. That last belief moves the issue out of the IT department and into the territory of brand and positioning.

On the other side is a generational reckoning. The number of licensed CPAs in the United States has fallen to roughly 653,000, down from a peak near 1.93 million in 2019, according to NASBA figures compiled by CPA Trendlines. Accounting graduates are down about 20% since 2010, and roughly three-quarters of today’s CPAs are nearing retirement. The talent coming up behind them wants what the profession has been slow to offer: flexibility, modern tools and a clearer sense of purpose.

Put those two forces together, and the story comes into focus. Technology is the trigger. Growth culture is the work. And growth culture is where marketing lives.

The Gap Between Adoption and Readiness

Most transformations fail, and rarely for technical reasons. McKinsey estimates the failure rate at near 70%, with the majority traced to employee resistance or management behavior rather than the tools. The barrier is people, not technology.

The tools are moving faster than the firms deploying them. In Thomson Reuters’ Future of Professionals research, only about 14% of tax, audit and accounting firms said they have a comprehensive AI strategy in place. A separate study of audit leaders found 83% struggling to bridge the gap between AI vision and execution. Adoption is outpacing the structure needed to make it stick.

Readiness is where it shows. Just 25% of tax, accounting and audit firms have trained their staff on generative AI, one of the lowest rates in professional services. The guidance vacuum has consequences: nearly a third of professionals whose firm has a stated AI strategy say they can’t see it day to day, and more than a third admit to using AI tools their firm hasn’t sanctioned, out of frustration with the lack of direction. Nearly 3 in 10 mid-career professionals say they would leave within two years if AI doesn’t deliver, a warning for a profession already short on talent. Leadership assumes the shift has happened. The front line is improvising. Adoption on paper is not adoption in practice, and someone has to close the distance between them.

Why This Lands on Marketing

It lands on marketing because marketing is already there. In the Legal Marketing Association’s 2025 Decision-Makers Survey, 70% of marketing and business development leaders said their department now plays a leading role in steering the firm’s technology adoption, especially AI. Marketers are often the most technology-fluent people in the building. The Marketing AI Institute’s 2025 State of Marketing AI Report shows most already use AI in their own work, and many have moved past experimentation into real integration, even as firm-wide use lags behind.

At the same time, the marketing leader’s remit is widening. The role is no longer confined to campaigns and collateral. It increasingly means co-owning culture with HR, digital experience with IT and engagement with internal communications. Getting people inside an organization to understand, believe and act has quietly become one of marketing’s most valuable contributions. The expectation has shifted from running the campaigns to leading the change.

From Overwhelmed to Indispensable

Too many marketers feel overwhelmed, overworked and underappreciated, treated as the function that makes things look good after the real decisions have been made. This era changes that. When an entire firm is navigating change it does not fully understand, the person who can translate that change into a story people believe and behaviors they adopt becomes indispensable. This is the seasoned marketer’s opening. Not to do more, but to lead differently.

The move is simple to say and harder to do. Stop waiting to be invited to the table and build the table yourself. Position yourself by partnering across the firm, deliberately and visibly.

• Partner with HR. Own the employer brand and the internal narrative in the middle of a talent war. Culture change (especially growth culture) and talent attraction are the same story, told inward and outward.
• Partner with the CIO or CTO. Be the human translation layer for new technology. IT can deploy a tool, but marketing makes people want to use it. Adoption is messaging and behavior, and that’s marketing’s sweet spot.
• Partner with the managing partner. Connect culture directly to growth. Position marketing as a growth driver, the function that turns transformation into pipeline and reputation.

Those partnerships play out across three arenas where the seasoned marketer is positioned to lead. The first is brand: keeper of the firm’s story, and the function best placed to close the gap between what the firm says it is and how it behaves, including the employer brand that wins scarce talent. The second is pipeline, translating AI-driven signals and efficiency into business development behavior and relationships. The third is growth leadership: earning the strategic seat and then holding it.

AI as the Marketer’s Own Force Multiplier

There’s a quieter opportunity here, too, and it’s personal. The most credible way to lead adoption is to model it. Use these tools so well that colleagues see what good looks like instead of being told. Used well, AI does not replace the marketer; it raises the ceiling on what a seasoned one can do. (For more on where AI works and where it doesn’t, see our earlier column.)

It accelerates the work. AI compresses the time-consuming parts of the job, from research and first drafts to campaign scaffolding and turning one asset into 10. That reclaimed time goes back into strategy, relationships and leading change.

It sharpens ideas. Treated as a thought partner, AI becomes a place to brainstorm concepts, pressure-test messaging and explore angles faster than any team could alone. It widens the funnel of ideas so the marketer can bring judgment to the best of them.

It makes new things possible. Personalization at scale, always-on content and predictive pipeline insight that surfaces opportunities a lean team could never find by hand were simply not feasible before.

The reframe is the same one the firm needs to hear. Accelerate, not replace. The marketer directs the AI. The human sets the strategy, owns the relationships and makes the call. A marketer who lives that balance becomes the firm’s most persuasive case for what healthy adoption looks like.

What Doesn’t Change

For all of it, the fundamentals hold. Trust is still built person to person. Judgment about when to act, how to frame a message and what not to say comes from experience no model can replicate. AI can enable a conversation, but it cannot have one. There is also a real risk in mistaking adoption metrics, like logins and usage rates, for real culture change; the numbers can climb while nothing underneath moves. The seasoned marketer knows the difference, and knows which shifts to amplify and which to nurture quietly. Technology changes what is possible. Culture decides what actually happens. And marketing is where the two meet.

Key Takeaways for Marketing and Business Development Leaders

• Culture, not technology, is the bottleneck. Accounting faces a double shift of AI and a generational talent reckoning, and the hard part is human.
• Adoption on paper isn’t adoption in practice. Closing that gap is marketing’s opening, and marketers are already steering firm technology adoption.
• Move from executor to change agent. Partner deliberately with HR, IT and firm leadership to position yourself where the strategic decisions get made.
• Own the arenas only marketing can. Brand, pipeline and growth are three sides of the same leadership role.
• Let AI accelerate, not replace. Use it as a thought partner to ideate and create, and model the adoption you want the firm to embrace.

Curious where your firm actually stands? Start with Winding River’s free AI readiness assessment.