Practice Forward with XcelLabs

To become trusted advisers, CPAs must turn numbers into meaningful, clarifying conversations. Too often, we have trouble with this. But AI tools can raise our level of communicating with clients to excel in the trusted adviser space.

Of course technical expertise is central to serving clients, but what truly cements your status as a trusted adviser is the ability to turn numbers into meaningful, clarifying conversations. To take a mountain of financial data and make it understandable and actionable both drives smart business decisions and progressively builds trust across your client base

In a profession based on rules and precision, too often conversations become a data dump, leaving clients lost in the jargon without clear direction. That’s where artificial intelligence (AI) can help.

AI is capable of supporting value-based conversations at every stage of the client’s journey. AI tools like XcelLabs’ Navi, for example, can coach you on communicating with clients, fostering empathy, and helping professionals across a wide spectrum grow beyond technical expertise and into the trusted adviser space.

How You Show Up Sets You Apart

Despite the level of expertise within a firm, primary attention must always come back to the client’s experience. It’s about building trust, being proactive with advisory, and showing up for clients beyond static statements and reports. Clients want more than accurate filings; they want clarity and the human connection that signals a true partnership.

Relationship-building will always be a key differentiator because it’s your chance to offer clients:

• Clarity: Translating complex data into actionable insights ensures clients know what matters and why.
• Empathy: Understanding client anxiety and aspirations, making clients feel heard rather than talked at.
• Human insight: Recognizing critical context or changes in tone, and reading between the lines to uncover needs clients might not voice.

Navi embraces these essentials by analyzing client meetings and providing instant, targeted feedback. Instead of guessing what resonated with clients, users can see how certain efforts come across and where to improve, enabling more authentic, collaborative conversations. This helps shift CPAs from “data explainers” to “trusted guides.”

AI as a Copilot

For leaders, it can be a struggle to empower teams without micromanaging or spreading themselves too thin. Navi can help resolve these concerns by being an always-on communication coach, allowing leaders to focus their energies elsewhere.

Here are just a few benefits:

• Coaching at scale: Managers don’t need to join every meeting to provide support. Navi delivers actionable feedback to every team member, freeing up leaders for higher-value engagements.
• Offering clear visibility: Managers receive big-picture insights on team strengths and gaps, helping them allocate resources, design targeted training, and set up teams for success.
• Supporting self-reflection: Unlike human teams, Navi isn’t afraid to offer unfiltered feedback. It can even identify when senior leaders miss the mark in clarity or empathy.
• Reducing burnout: By leveraging Navi’s analytics, leaders can stop feeling pressured to be everywhere at once. Systems, not superhuman effort, are what scale sustainable team growth.

AI as the Newbie’s Copilot

For early-career accountants, the art of client conversation can be a big challenge – one that traditional training rarely addresses or can keep pace with evolving roles. Despite the pervasiveness of remote work, new hires are still expected to deliver impact.

Navi can be a safe space to practice and accelerate learning. It offers the following:

• Judgment-free feedback: AI provides honest, supportive coaching without awkwardness or fear of embarrassment.
• Speed to confidence: New team members can analyze any conversation, learn what worked, and see specific examples for improvement after every client touchpoint with no need to wait for sporadic feedback from managers.
• Private progress: Everything is confidential, reducing pressure and allowing experimentation until new skills feel natural.
• Leveling up remote teams: For those working remotely, Navi can bridge the gap caused by a lack of in-person mentorship, providing the same insights that in-office advice and conversations used to provide.

Pick Your Copilot and Fly

Mastering client conversations is at the center of sustainable growth and professional relevance. With AI tools like Navi, accounting professionals get real-time, practical coaching rooted in empathy, clarity, and human insight.

Leaders can use AI to empower their teams without burnout, while new professionals can develop their own confident, client-centric voices much faster. More broadly, the firm can enjoy stronger, stickier client relationships.

While technology keeps moving ahead, becoming a masterful communicator, supported by a smart copilot, is the key to unlocking value, building trust, and staying indispensable to clients.

Jody Padar, CPA, also known as “The Radical CPA,” is the co-founder of XcelLabs, a training and technology platform that offers solutions to help accountants use AI to build fluency and strategic thinking. Visit XcelLabs for more information.

Backed by the PICPA, XcelLabs is helping CPAs leverage AI to expand advisory capabilities, strengthen firms, and keep the profession future-ready.

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Statements of fact and opinion are the author's responsibility alone and do not imply an opinion on the part of the PICPA's officers or members. The information contained herein does not constitute accounting, legal, or professional advice. For actionable advice, you must engage or consult with a qualified professional.