Driven by relentless innovation, we’re witnessing a transformative shift in how technology shapes professional landscapes. The arrival of agentic artificial intelligence marks a significant milestone, ushering in an era where AI transcends traditional boundaries to become an essential partner in completing complex work. This evolution is not merely an upgrade; it’s a complete reimagining of how professionals will navigate their tasks, optimize strategies, and elevate decision-making processes in the years ahead.
Introducing CoCounsel with Agentic Intelligence
At Thomson Reuters, we’ve moved beyond offering only an AI assistant that simply responds to prompts. Our new agentic intelligence—available now in CoCounsel for tax, audit and accounting professionals—can plan, reason, and act within established workflows, completing complex multi-step assignments with unprecedented precision and accountability.
Let’s be clear: we are not just rebranding our AI assistant as “agentic.” We’re engineering full agentic systems—backed by trusted content, custom-trained models, and real domain expertise—that will give that assistant a new and more powerful way of working. This is the next generation of AI, and Thomson Reuters is once again setting the bar for professionals.
The distinction is crucial. Traditional AI assistants use the power of GenAI to produce impressive outputs when prompted correctly, but they cannot suggest and execute next steps within professional contexts. By contrast, CoCounsel with agentic intelligence understands goals holistically, breaks them into logical steps, uses the right tools to complete tasks, and—perhaps most important—escalates when human expertise is required for judgment calls or final decisions.
Thomson Reuters is leading the agentic AI generation
We’ve spent over a year developing our agentic platform, accelerated by our acquisition of Materia, the AI copilot startup specializing in agentic systems for tax and accounting. Rather than build standalone agentic tools, our goal has been to re-architect core product experiences. This approach involves drawing from the most critical features and content across platforms such as Checkpoint, Westlaw, and Practical Law, making their market-leading capabilities available as tools for the AI agents to use—enabling those agents to act and reason within already accepted industry best practices—and supercharging them with GenAI.
Agentic AI built for how professionals really work
CoCounsel Tax, one of our first fully realized agentic solutions, demonstrates this philosophy in action. It automates genuine tax professional workflows—from client file review to memo drafting and compliance checks—while providing explainable outputs and comprehensive audit trails. It connects firm knowledge, Checkpoint, Internal Revenue Code, and internal documents into a single AI-guided workspace.
Early customers are already seeing major benefits
“CoCounsel has revolutionized the way our team approaches our daily workload. Not only does CoCounsel save us countless hours of manual work, but it also allows us time to hone in on the more thought-intensive tasks we perform to enhance, strengthen, and optimize the way we serve our clients. CoCounsel doesn’t replace our expertise – it amplifies it.”
—Zachary Iannotta, CPA, Assurance Associate, HBK CPAs & Associates“CoCounsel was a lifesaver for us this year. We brought on more business than expected—and the only way we kept up was with CoCounsel. It took the most time-consuming part of our work—researching state requirements—and turned it into something we could trust and reuse.”
—Rich Marlatt, Chief Information Officer, BLISS 1041
This is just the beginning. We’re extending agentic capabilities across legal, risk, and compliance workflows. In tax and accounting, we’re currently developing Ready to Review, an agentic experience that can draft tax returns in GoSystem Tax, adapt to system feedback, and resolve diagnostics—showcasing the next frontier of professional AI that can work with tools, not just alongside them.
For legal professionals, agentic workflows for drafting, policy generation, and deposition analysis are already in development, with much more to come.
Even with AI advancements, humans need to remain in the loop
With agentic AI, human-AI collaboration is set to redefine how tasks are accomplished. A crucial aspect of this integration is the concept of human-in-the-loop. Throughout the AI model lifecycle, human involvement is indispensable. In developing AI solutions, domain experts play a vital role in evaluating model responses to ensure they meet professional standards and ethical guidelines. This human oversight continues when AI models are integrated into products or internal workflows, ensuring continuous monitoring and validation of model outputs.
Take CoCounsel Tax, for example. We leverage the expertise of 180 tax and accounting editors to build and refine our AI solutions. These professionals monitor model responses during the pre- and post-development, training, and deployment phases, safeguarding the accuracy and reliability of AI outputs. By maintaining human oversight, we ensure AI systems not only support but enhance the professional standards across industries, empowering professionals to make informed decisions with confidence.
Moreover, we emphasize to our customers the importance of validating the integrity and accuracy of information and work completed with AI assistance. By verifying the outputs, professionals safeguard against potential errors and maintain the high standards expected in their fields. Our products make this easy by providing citations, so our customers always know the source for the information provided. This ensures that AI serves as a valuable tool that complements human expertise, rather than replacing it, reinforcing the collaborative nature of modern professional environments.
This transformation won’t happen overnight, but it is happening now. The era of agentic intelligence has begun, and it promises to redefine what’s possible for professionals across industries. At Thomson Reuters, we’re proud to be leading the way.
If you are interested in learning more about CoCounsel Tax, Audit or Accounting, visit our website.
