The Spring 2025 AICPA Council meeting was held on Tuesday – Thursday, May 13-15, in Washington, D.C. I was joined by Tom Walker, outgoing member, Anita Goodrum, incoming member, Jan Lewis, AICPA Board member, Linda Keng, Legislative Chair, and Karen Moody, President/CEO. Carla McCall, AICPA Chair, opened the meeting and officiated throughout.

Mark Koziel, the new AICPA President & CEO, made the opening presentation titled “Rise to the Future Together.” This was a look at our US economic outlook and our role as CPA’s as trusted advisors. According to Mark, the country’s economic outlook shifts by the day. Although April had a pessimistic outlook, things are shifting upward. The tariff uncertainty plays into this pessimism. 60% of the CFO’s in the country expect a recession in the second half of 2025 with another 15% expecting this in 2026. The AICPA has resources available to the membership in navigating tariffs that are updated as changes are announced. This can be found on their website under navigating tariffs. Our role as trusted advisors continues to be important and we need to stay updated on all regulatory and legislative issues as well as current affairs. Also, CPA’s need to stay current in one of the hottest practice area developments, artificial intelligence, AI. AI is being used widely already in many areas of our practices, such as bookkeeping, workflow efficiency, and tax preparation, but we are beginning to see a cautious adoption into audit and risk analysis.

Mark also discussed the pipeline pathways. A 3rd pathway was passed by NASBA the week before the meeting and the AICPA Board approved this pathway the night before the meeting started. The new pathway is a bachelor’s degree, 2 years of experience, and passing the CPA exam to become licensed. The two current pathways remain: a master’s degree, 1 year of experience, and passing the exam; and a bachelor’s degree + 30 hours, 1 year of experience, and passing the exam. The next step will be to see what the next version of the Uniform Accountancy Act will include, which is projected to be published in early summer…. any day now.

Daniel Burrus, a leading world futurist on global trends and disruptive innovation, spoke regarding the power of generative AI applications and tools. According to Daniel, although AI has been around for decades, the launch of ChatGPT marked a new era of Generative AI. In his opinion, businesses that fail to learn to use and leverage AI tools will struggle to keep up. He does caution that we utilize AI as a first draft tool and rely on human judgement to ensure accuracy and personalization. Council also participated in tabletop breakout sessions regarding not only AI issues but our role in technology driven futures in the profession. This also included discussions of hard and soft trends in technology that will transform our futures, including that of our profession.
Much of the rest of the meeting was spent briefing the Council on the topics to be discussed during the Capitol Hill visits the next day. A separate article in this Newsletter details the conversations with our two Senators and four Representatives.

However, the highlight of the meeting occurred during the report of the Nominations Committee and the election of the new Vice-Chair of the AICPA, Jan Lewis. Congratulations, Jan! Mississippi CPAs are proud of you and your accomplishments. I consider myself privileged to have been an office mate of yours in the early years, your partner for almost 20 years, and your friend for over 35 years. I know you will do a great job in your leadership roles with the AICPA!

- Cheryl Sykes - AICPA Council Representative