How AI is reshaping professional services

Smart tech meets smart advice: how AI is reshaping professional services

The impact of AI (both the disruptive and constructive) is being felt across many of our clients. This includes a quiet transformation of the way that some obtain professional services, including accounting, legal and compliance.

Tools that were (a few short years ago) only accessible to larger organisations are now very much within the reach of smaller, growing businesses that want to move faster, operate smarter and make better-informed decisions.

But there’s a difference between using “artificial intelligence” as a support tool and ensuring that business decisions that require specialist advice are “intelligent”.

Why AI matters

Beginning with the obvious, many accounting, legal and compliance elements undertaken in-house by our clients are time-consuming and data heavy. These are exactly the sort of features that make them a natural fit for automation and AI.

You may have already come across platforms that:

• Assist your staff with AI tools that are integrated in upgrades to your existing software (such as MS365 Copilot).
• Organise data – not just on a “day to day” but also as a vital element of planning if you’re working towards securing a round of investment or an exit.

There are many GPT wrappers crowding the AI market at the moment but some of the tools (particularly those pre-integrated into your existing IT) are excellent. They can help you save time and reduce admin costs and, when specialist advice is sought, it’s focussed on valuable insight not processing raw information.

What UK businesses are already doing with AI

What are we seeing being adopted

1. Accounting software – many of the big providers of AI software have embraced AI to simplify accounting functions, including automated data entry (such as fileAI by Xero) which will extract and structure data from invoices, receipts, and bank statements, along with predictive analytics which can offer forecasting analytics (marketed as helping businesses anticipate cash flow trends and make informed decisions)
2. Human resources – platforms now also leverage AI across various HR functions, including payroll processing, HR advice, and recruitment (aligning candidates with roles and optimising hiring processes). They can also streamline HR tasks such as onboarding and internal performance management.
3. Fast-tracking due diligence, disclosure and contract management – a traditionally expensive part of many legal processes, AI tools can assist with large-scale document review, especially for M&A, investment rounds and disclosure on litigation matters. It can also assist with internal contract management. SMEs and their advisors can use these tools to surface key terms in commercial agreements, flag gaps and key information, and prepare a virtual data room.

From our perspective, AI is currently developing in a progressive way that allows professional advisors to spend less time on the heavy lifting and more time on adding real value, such as deploying creative solutions to problems, obtaining a deeper understanding of client objectives and protecting what matters most.

Where AI falls short

It will continue to improve, but currently AI is brilliant at helping businesses move faster. But, when these businesses and their owners are engaged in high stake decisions, there’s a clear line between the speed and cost benefits of automation and the advantages of bespoke advice to develop and deliver a strategy.

Here’s two critical things that AI tools don’t do well:

• Making judgment calls – yes, AI can be trained on vast amounts of data and deliver options (or even a decision) based on patterns using large language models (LLMs). But, AI lacks nuance and can hallucinate. It is poor at creative/critical thinking or weighing deal-specific trade-offs in complex, strategic business decisions.
• Understanding your context – every business is different, but AI struggles to empathise with particular needs. It lacks instinct to understand risk appetite, wider deal pressures, or the ability to translate commercial goals into real-world solutions.

It’s not meant to.

Helping tech-enabled businesses

For professional advisors, “resistance is futile” and quite frankly, unambitious. The best partnerships between professionals and their clients will ensure AI and human advice is mutually elevated by collaboration and will likely evolve like this:

• AI handles the heavy lifting – for example, growth and exit events often involve reviewing a large number of contracts with varying terms and formats (supply agreements, security documents, leases etc.) for clauses that triggered by the event. Software can get you 60% of the way, meaning that your advisors focus is re-deployed to analysing the less straightforward situations (which is where you want their focus to be), along with assessment of legal risk generated by the output and delivering solutions that will mitigate it.
• More time can be spent on what makes a difference to your deal – is that clause (which is, ostensibly, triggered by your event) actually enforceable? What is the level of risk and is it worth taking? What strategy would we recommend to mitigate the risk? How could the deal be re-structured to avoid the contractual friction?
• Move faster and with greater confidence – it won’t be about choosing between human advice or technology. Smart business leaders are likely to choose the right combination for enhanced outcomes (rather than just seeking a lower cost alternative).

Building a legal-tech toolkit

If you’re an SME exploring AI-powered legal tools (including those available to your legal partner), below is some practical guidance:

1. Start with a review – if you are shopping for an internal platform, ask your advisor to help map your recurring processes: employment, procurement, sales, compliance. Where are the bottlenecks and where is time being lost? Tech-savvy advisors are not trying to retain territory. They will embrace ways that take you further.
2. Use AI for efficiency, not decision-making (and don’t expect empathy) – consider letting automation handle some of the mechanics: compliance, deadline tracking, contract management etc. and bring in your advisor for the analysis, strategy and application, when required. Resolving issues created by inconsistent and/or poorly organised data and fixing non-compliance (such as inconsistent client contracts, out-of-date statutory books or incorrect capitalisation tables) are not areas of work in which your corporate solicitor is wantonly seeking additional fees. It is rarely advantageous for the client or their advisor to deal with these issues as part of the deal timetable when focus should be on instilling confidence in your buyer securing the best possible terms for the transaction.
3. Integrate, don’t isolate – choose tools that allow your legal advisers to collaborate with you. Many platforms now allow shared access, comments, or integration. This keeps advice connected to the documents and the elevation that professionals can bring to your strategy and decision-making.
4. Stay legally compliant – be cautious when using AI tools that are processing personal client data, employee records, or financial information. You must always check how the data is processed, where the data is stored, how it’s protected and whether the terms of use align with your regulatory obligations.

At Morr & Co, we can help you assess these tools from a GDPR and contractual perspective.

Reframing the conversation: AI is not a threat – it’s a strategic asset

It’s a defensive misconception for advisors to take the view that AI is in competition with them.

In practice, what we’re seeing is the emergence of a new model, where businesses use AI to become more agile and legal professionals focus on judgment, empathy and creativity to deliver faster, sharper and more bespoke advice.

This is particularly powerful for tech-smart SMEs, who don’t have a large in-house legal team and are often balancing their ambition with limited resources. By blending both strategies (AI automation with accessible legal support), we believe that SMEs can move more quicker on contracts, stay ahead of regulatory/compliance obligations, improve their investor/exit readiness and achieve better outcomes.

AI is transforming how your business (and our business) operates; and for the better. The real opportunity is in building a smarter legal ecosystem within your business, supported by advisors who truly understand their value proposition, to focus on what matters.

How can Morr & Co help?

If you have any questions or would like any further information on the content of this article, please do not hesitate to contact our Corporate & Commercial team on 0333 038 9100 or email info@morrlaw.com and a member of our expert team will get back to you.

Disclaimer
Although correct at the time of publication, the contents of this newsletter/blog are intended for general information purposes only and shall not be deemed to be, or constitute, legal advice. We cannot accept responsibility for any loss as a result of acts or omissions taken in respect of this article. Please contact us for the latest legal position.