Live from Xerocon at Olympia, Richard Hattersley sits down with Xero CEO Sukhinder Singh Cassidy to mark the company's 20th anniversary. Together, they unpack Xero's massive AI announcements, a new mid-market push, and a fascinating experiment where the software giant tried—and failed—to clone itself using AI.

In this episode, they discuss:

Xero at 20: The journey from a far-fetched New Zealand startup to a platform serving 5 million global subscribers.

The Rise of the 'Builder Class': How 500,000 users have already adopted Xero’s AI bundle (Jax), driving a fourfold jump in API usage.

Microsoft & Anthropic Integrations: Why bringing Xero data into Copilot and Claude is a game-changer for finance workflows, and addressing the "fox in the henhouse" data security debate.

The Clone Experiment: Why AI can handle basic bank categorization with ease, but hits a roadblock on the general ledger ("Xero is always more than five lines of code").

The Mid-Market Push & Xero Ultra: Solving the painful leap from small business to full ERP with advanced analytics and seamless book-to-tax workflows.

Listen now to find out why model advances are a product tailwind rather than a market threat, and how to move from compliance drudgery into high-value advisory work.

For full show notes visit: https://www.accountingweb.co.uk/tech/tech-pulse/xero-ceo-ai-builder-class-rewrites-accounting

How can firms ensure technology improves the client experience rather than complicates it and can such a step be taken without affecting that relationship? David Gartside and Luke Farren join The Progressive Firm Podcast to discuss.

The team starts with good news for the Finance, Accounting & Bookkeeping Show, after FAB picked up two event awards. Richard Hattersley reflects on what the wins say about the show and what’s next for FAB 2027.

Tom Herbert turns to HMRC’s tax gap figures and asks whether Making Tax Digital for income tax (MTD) is still the right answer. He looks at research from Mazuma founder Lucy Cohen, which suggests MTD could add to the tax gap rather than reduce it. Herbert explores why AI is at the heart of the issue and what can be done.

Hattersley then looks at the tax uncertainty caused by Westminster’s latest shake-up. With a change in prime minister on the way, the team considers what could happen next on tax. He explores what went wrong for Keir Starmer, the rise of Andy Burnham and what it all means for accountants.

Finally, Matthew Ord discusses how CFOs and FDs should use the time technology gives back. Drawing on his conversation with fractional CFO and FAB speaker Dhosjan Greenaway-Dalini, Ord argues that finance leaders should focus less on vanity projects and more on getting closer to the business, joining up teams and doing work that makes a real difference.

No Accounting for Taste ep216: P&L filing from proposal to final form by AccountingWEBUK

Tom Herbert shares his takeaways from Tax Tech Live in London, where the AI conversation felt more grounded. Rather than sweeping claims about revolutionising the profession, the focus was on practical use cases, how teams are using AI now, and what this could mean for training and the profession. Herbert also warns that a pricing crunch may be coming as AI costs rise.

Matthew Ord then looks at EY's latest Global DNA of the CFO survey, which suggests CFO ambition is running ahead of execution. While many finance leaders want to drive value creation, fewer are leading those conversations. Ord and Herbert explore why finance still struggles to translate data, technology and insight into boardroom influence, and why the future of finance depends on effectively bringing talent and technology together.

Finally, the team talks about audit, following BDO’s £2m penalty. Ord explains what happened before discussing what the Financial Reporting Council’s findings say about audit quality, professional scepticism and the question of what happens next now that audit reform has stalled.

Matthew Ord opens the podcast with good news for anyone still working on their Accounting Excellence entry: the deadline has been extended to 3 June. So if you haven’t quite finished your entry or wished you’d have started one, now is the time to get it done.

Tom Herbert shares news that Bokio, a cloud accounting system, is pulling the plug on its UK operations on 30 June 2026. He explains what has happened, what it means for users and whether it could be a warning sign for the latest wave of artificial intelligence (AI) products entering the accounting software market.

To close, Ord asks whether finance leaders can still be effective if they are not tech-savvy. He and Herbert discuss how technology has become part of the finance leader’s day-to-day role, and whether finance professionals now need to think more like tech leaders rather than accountants.

As Tom Herbert returns from sunny San Francisco, he reflects on his time at Sage Future and the event’s focus on building trust in artificial intelligence (AI). He shares the research from the conference, the push to improve user confidence and the announcements pointing towards a more practical, pragmatic phase of AI adoption.

Mathew Ord explores the perception and performance gap facing finance professionals. He looks back on his conversation with Chris Argent, founder of GENCFO and Accounting Excellence judge, about the disconnect between finance teams that see themselves as strategic business partners and those genuinely operating in that role.

Staying with finance, Ord also highlights this year’s Accounting Excellence finance categories, including Finance Digital Transformation, Finance Team of the Year and Finance Leader of the Year. Get your entries in before the 20 May deadline.

Speaking to AccountingWEB technology editor Tom Herbert at Sage Future, Sage’s annual user conference in San Francisco, chief executive Steve Hare argued that artificial intelligence (AI) adoption in accounting will depend less on flashy generative features and more on whether finance teams can inspect, verify and trust the outputs.

Hare also addressed the wider market anxiety caused by large AI platforms such as Anthropic and Perplexity moving further into professional services software, how AI could affect software pricing in the future, and Sage’s move to take its popular desktop tool Sage 50 to the cloud.

For full show notes visit: https://www.accountingweb.co.uk/tech/accounting-software/sage-ceo-accountants-wont-trust-black-box-ai

How does an accounting firm navigate the breakdown of a relationship with a difficult client and what’s the cost of letting such a scenario play out for far too long? Muntazir Bhimji and Natasha Millward join The Progressive Firm Podcast to discuss.

There is just under a month to go until entries for the Accounting Excellence Awards close on 20 May. Matthew Ord shares more on this year’s awards, including the new categories, while Tom Herbert outlines the trends he expects to see in the entries and offers some good advice on what actually makes a good entry.

After an Any Answers post criticised AccountingWEB for covering artificial intelligence (AI) too much, Herbert argued that AI is changing the profession too quickly to ignore. Calling it a “noisy tech transition”, he said there is a clear appetite for education and information. Drawing on conversations from Sage’s AI roadshows, Herbert noted that many attendees were sole practitioners and small firms at the start of their AI journey, looking for guidance, something which AccountingWEB can provide.

Finally, Ord looks at the profession’s ongoing skills gap, which shows little sign of easing. He reflects on his conversation with AAT chief executive Sarah Beale, who warned that the profession is still not doing enough to show how much it has changed. Ord and Herbert agree that finance and accountancy have never been especially strong at selling themselves, keeping old ideas about the profession alive.