Thomson Reuters Debuts CoCounsel AI for Tax and Accounting Professionals

You know that moment when you realize most of your day went to chasing numbers instead of solving problems? Every professional, tax, auditor, accountant, you name it, hits that wall sooner or later. The spreadsheets blur, the checklists grow, and you start wondering if there’s a better way to get the work done without losing your mind (or your weekend). Turns out, that “better way” just arrived with a name tag that reads agentic AI. Thomson Reuters is rolling out a suite of smart tools built not just to assist you but to act alongside you, handling returns, verifying audit evidence, and tying all the messy details together before you’ve even finished your coffee. This isn’t about replacing human expertise; it’s about giving professionals a teammate who never gets tired, distracted, or hangry.

Not Your Grandma’s Tax Software

Thomson Reuters just dropped a buffet of AI-powered tools; think of it as upgrading from a calculator to a co-pilot. Their latest innovation, CoCounsel, isn’t another chatbot that quotes code sections; it actually does work. Using agentic AI, it plans, executes, and asks for help only when human judgment is needed. The headliner, Ready to Review, is built for 1040 prep. It chews through source docs and prior-year returns, pulls the right data, and churns out returns ready for sign-off. Firms like Indiana-based CLH CPAs report saving about an hour per simple return. During busy season, that’s not just time saved, it’s survival. And because this new tech plugs directly into the software you already use, including Checkpoint and Microsoft 365, the shift feels less like a tech revolution and more like someone finally fixed what was broken.

Meet Your New Best Friend

Auditors, grab your lucky pens, there’s something new for you, too. CoCounsel Document Analysis and Audit Intelligence Test takes the slog out of evidence matching and workpaper prep. Document Analysis integrates with the CoCounsel Audit platform and uses a spreadsheet-native grid to automate workflows at scale. You can iterate, customize, and collaborate in real time without wrestling Excel into submission. Then there’s the Audit Intelligence Test, developed with Valid8 Financial. It automates tracing transactions to bank activity and validating collections, which cuts manual testing by up to 70%. Kentucky-based CPA Brad Oberlander says what once took two days now takes six hours. That’s not “faster”, that’s practically sorcery.

More Brains, Less Busywork

What makes this round of AI upgrades truly different is the agentic piece, AI that doesn’t just generate content but can plan and execute multi-step tasks on its own. It’s like delegating to the world’s most meticulous junior associate, minus the training curve. Thomson Reuters also introduced ONESOURCE+, a compliance network that uses AI to automate everything from sales-tax filing to global product classification. We’re talking 40–60% faster filings across thousands of jurisdictions. For anyone who’s ever stayed late trying to reconcile data across three systems, that’s sweet music. And because pros live by citations, CoCounsel now integrates authoritative content from AICPA, FASB, GASB, and IFRS right into the workflow. No more bouncing between tabs to check a rule; the system already knows it.

A Little Tech Wisdom

If you’re thinking “cool, but what about data privacy,” you’re not alone. Thomson Reuters says client data isn’t used to train public AI models, and every result comes with explainable logic. Translation: the bot doesn’t hallucinate its way through your audits. As Elizabeth Beastrom, president of Tax and Accounting Professionals, puts it, “AI is no longer just a productivity tool; it’s a fundamental transformation in how work gets done.” Or in plain English: the busywork days are numbered.

What’s In It for Professionals?

Whether you’re a one-person tax shop or managing a full-scale audit team, these tools don’t replace expertise; they amplify it. Routine tasks like data entry, reconciliation, and evidence matching can move off your plate so you can focus on analysis, strategy, and client relationships. Sure, AI still needs you to make the judgment calls and spot the oddities (because software still can’t raise an eyebrow), but it’s giving professionals back what’s been missing: time. So, the next time someone jokes that accountants just “do math,” you can smile and say, “Sure, but now my AI handles the boring part.”

Takeaway: Agentic AI is reshaping professional work from the inside out. It’s not flashy hype; it’s the next logical step in making tax, audit, and accounting smarter, faster, and a lot less soul-crushing. Or as every seasoned CPA might say, finally, something that actually reconciles with common sense.