The 2026 Emerging Technology and Generative AI Forum

Join us as we dive into the latest data on tax, audit, and accounting from The Future of Professionals Report, produced yearly by Thomson Reuters Institute.

As emerging technologies move from experimentation to embedded infrastructure, professional services leaders are being forced to make faster, higher‑stakes calls about where and how to place their bets. Generative AI now sits at the center of debates on regulation, data governance, client expectations, and talent—reshaping both the economics and the ethics of how work gets done. This session takes a forward-looking view of the 2026-27 technology landscape, separating durable shifts from short-lived noise and examining how policy, platform consolidation, and new AI-native tools are likely to reshape the market. You’ll gain a clearer picture of the trends that matter, the risks that can’t be delegated, and the strategic questions firms need to answer now to be ready for the next wave of innovation. 

Gather up for an interactive session that turns AI from buzzword to bottom-line impact. In this hands-on game, facilitator(s) will guide you through professional services scenarios where you’ll estimate and validate time saved and value created through various use cases. See how your AI strategy and usage can be measured and quantified. Together, you’ll pressure-test when to deploy agents, automated assistants, prompt builders, and chatbots, and where human judgment must remain firmly in the loop. Through team-based challenges and rapid debriefs, participants will walk away with a sharper sense of the most efficient AI utilization tactics. Expect team challenges and a bit of friendly competition as you discern a quantifiable outlook on the role of AI in real client work and internal operations. 

In this detail-oriented fireside chat, two AI experts will divulge the finer details of cultivating a credible, durable AI strategy inside a professional services firm. Instead of abstract visions of “digital transformation,” they’ll talk through how they’re approaching this work day to day, focusing on: setting foundations around data and governance, weaving AI into legacy workflows, choosing which ideas to pilot first, and making sure investments line up with firm economics and client expectations. Expect a candid, focused look at what has genuinely worked, what hasn’t landed the way they hoped, and how their teams are building comfort and confidence around experimentation, risk, and change at scale. 

To close the day, step into a high-energy fishbowl session where the agenda belongs to the room. Throughout the forum, attendees will have the opportunity to submit pointed, real-world questions about AI, automation, and emerging tools in professional services—from operating models and commercialization to talent, ethics, and vendor strategy. In this finale, panelists from leading firms and professionals pioneering in the software industry will draw questions at random and respond on the spot. The result is an unscripted, intellectually rigorous dialogue that surfaces live case studies, contrarian perspectives, and hard-won lessons you won’t find in polished decks—an opportunity to road-test your own assumptions in a culmination of the day’s insights.  

Please join us for cocktails and light bites as we bring the day’s conversations to a close.