I wrote a goodwill impairment analysis in 30 minutes. My first encounter with AI in the workplace was simple but meaningful.
It would have taken me half a day. The research, the framework, the documentation, the write-up. Brutal. Half a day of focused work before I could hand it off or present it with confidence.
My prompt was simple:
I am trying to write a goodwill impairment analysis. Can you help?
Before I knew the basics of prompting, the CO-STAR framework, or how LLM’s even work, this was my starting point. The LLM asked me necessary questions. I provided relevant context. Within 30 minutes I had an auditable workpaper that passed with flying colors.
That was the moment I knew the profession was changing. Not because it saved me four hours. But because it made me realize I had been thinking about AI completely wrong.
I had been treating it like a search engine. Ask a question, get an answer, move on. That is how we’ve all been programmed. That is the obstacle. What I discovered that day was these tools aren’t search engines — they’re thought partners. A thought partner that could hold the entire framework in its head while I directed the analysis.
Everything changed after that. Not because I found a new tool. Because I stopped seeing the tool the way I had been programmed.
That’s what this article is about. Not the tools. The mindset shift.
Why most accountants don’t make it
Two reasons.
