The misfortunes of artificial intelligence solutions for accounting firms: The forgotten role of distribution channels in the diffusion of innovations

Accounting firms have increasingly been depicted as subject to disruptive technological innovations, such as continuous reporting and artificial intelligence, which would supposedly cause profound transformations in accountants’ work practices. Yet, there appears to be a widening gap between a managerial, prospective, and prescriptive literature increasingly underlining the “need” for accounting firms to embrace these technologies and the extent to which they actually disseminate among accountants. By emphasizing a basic yet overlooked mechanism of diffusion – sales –, the paper explores the market mechanisms that regulate and temper the diffusion of innovative accounting technologies. Results show that well-established sales channels are largely controlled by reselling firms, who act as gatekeepers between innovators and accountants, filtering technologies depending on their own business interests. Moreover, accountants themselves do not perceive technological innovations as a high strategic priority. In this picture, innovators struggle to disseminate their products among accounting firms and the prophesied transformation of the accounting profession through technological disruption appears to be more myth than reality, as innovations are first and foremost pressuring the sales channels through which technological innovations are sold, rather than accounting firms themselves.