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AI in consulting, law and accounting

Law firms and accounting practices are among the most active adopters of generative AI. Spanish lawyers report 88 % habitual use, and a five-country survey of legal professionals found 31 % using AI daily to draft documents. Accounting software already automates up to 95–98 % of routine invoice processing at firms such as Holded and AGIRIS’s AMICOMPTA, and mid-sized consultancies describe cutting specific tasks from hundreds of hours to a fraction of that. Adoption still splits sharply by firm size, and questions of confidentiality, oversight and data governance remain largely unresolved outside the largest organisations.

Lawyers report high daily use, but it splits by firm size

A Karnov survey of 3,129 legal professionals across Denmark, Spain, France, Norway and Sweden found 31 % use AI daily to draft legal documents and a further 28 % weekly, while 10 % refuse to use it. 62 % of law firms said AI improves the quality of advice they give. In Spain, a separate report put habitual use among lawyers at 88 %. In France, the Conseil national des barreaux found, in a May 2025 survey, that 57 % of sole practitioners used AI, against 86 % in firms with more than 100 lawyers. The Paris Bar has since launched a free AI Academy, after reporting hallucinations in legal submissions and a rise in disciplinary sanctions.

Our summaries: Cinco Días, elEconomista, Silicon.fr

Hourly billing comes under strain as review tasks speed up

The hourly billing model faces direct pressure. One commentary cites an AI contract review taking 30 seconds for a 50-page document, against three hours for a junior associate. PwC Tax & Legal España says it saved more than 19,000 hours across close to 900 professionals over six months in 2026, and Dechert reports that its average use of AI has risen markedly in 2026 compared with 2025. At Freshfields, partners reportedly discussed spinning off their AI-driven legal technology unit, described in leaked emails as valued in the billions. French accountants describe a similar shift: pure production work, one trade commentary notes, is becoming hard to differentiate and, ultimately, to price.

Our summaries: Journal du Net, Expansión, Financial Times, Les Echos

Accounting automation concentrates on invoice processing

In accounting, automation is concentrated in document handling. AGIRIS’s AMICOMPTA software has processed more than 100 million invoices since 2020, now handling close to 4 million a month for over 1,000 client firms, automating more than 90 % of detailed entry (98 % for e-invoices). Spain’s Holded, used by 900,000 customers managing over 15 million invoices a year, says its platform automates up to 95 % of users’ accounting tasks. Online French firm Dougs, which raised €50 million in October 2026 after reaching €50 million in annual recurring revenue, serves more than 50,000 businesses and is investing partly in further automation. Tools such as Pennylane, Cegid and Sage already retrieve and match invoices automatically, though the firm remains responsible for the accounts.

Our summaries: Compta Online, Emprendedores, FrenchWeb (1, 2)

Mid-sized firms report measurable gains once tasks are defined

Mid-sized professional services firms report measurable, if modest, gains once AI moves from pilot to a defined task. Spanish consultancy Zenital describes a client project where automating the collection and prioritisation of training needs cut the work from around 240 hours to about 80. Over a year, Zenital trained more than 200 professionals from roughly 15 client companies, and identifies four recurring obstacles: unfamiliarity with the tools, limited understanding of the underlying technology, organisational rigidity, and the pace at which AI itself keeps changing. Ten of its own consultants have become Claude Certified Architects, as the firm seeks Anthropic’s Select Partner status.

Our summaries: Revista Byte TI

Confidentiality and oversight lag behind the technology

Outside the largest firms, confidentiality and oversight remain largely unaddressed. One consultant working with SMEs notes that new MCP connectors let assistants such as Claude or ChatGPT read accounting, payroll or CRM data directly, but that most SMEs have not yet decided which account the assistant uses, who authorised the connection, or how reliable its answers are — an issue acute for accountants bound by professional secrecy. A separate opinion piece argues that smaller, specialised language models run locally suit regulated professions such as notaries, bankers or insurers better than large general models, for confidentiality and compliance with the EU AI Act. At law firm Cuatrecasas, the president has argued that junior lawyers should not learn the profession through AI.

Our summaries: Journal du Net, Economie Matin, El País

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Method

Text written on 20 October 2026 by an AI model (Claude Sonnet 5, by Anthropic) from 80 AI watch articles on this theme, published between 22 September 2026 and 19 October 2026. Each paragraph links to the entries it draws on, and every number in the text was found in one of these articles before publication. The text is rewritten every week.

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