If 2025 was the year our profession accelerated, 2026 will be the year it transforms. The forces reshaping accounting and advisory—consolidation, technology, talent mobility, and global delivery—are shifting faster than ever. But at the center of this movement is something simple: firms that stay human at scale will win.
Members of Springline’s executive team: CEO Tim Brackney, Chief People Officer Erin McAuley, and SVP of Global Operations Hiral Rao, shared their predictions for the year ahead. Together, they outline a profession where consolidation becomes more strategic, AI becomes operational, talent becomes borderless, and culture becomes a core differentiator.
Here’s what they see coming in 2026.
1. Consolidation Will Accelerate—and Specialization Will Matter More Than Size
Tim Brackney predicts that consolidation isn’t just continuing; it’s maturing.
The wave of deals that validated the PE-backed model in recent years will give way to a more nuanced era where fit becomes the determining factor. “There is no one-size-fits-all approach,” Tim notes. Firms that wait too long may find themselves scrambling to secure the right partner or missing their best opportunity.
In 2026, success hinges on balancing speed with discernment—moving quickly enough to seize momentum without sacrificing long-term cultural alignment. The firms that will thrive are those offering their people bigger opportunities, stronger capabilities, and greater impact.
2. AI Becomes a Competitive Advantage—If Firms Deploy It with Intention
According to Tim and Hiral, AI’s role in the profession will deepen and become more operationally embedded.
“AI will be both a boon and a distraction,” Tim says. The differentiator? Firms that implement AI in ways that create headspace—allowing teams to think broadly, solve deeply, and spend more time with clients.
Hiral adds that automation is shifting from a cost lever to a control tower. AI-enabled delivery models will manage performance, compliance, and capacity across distributed workforces. Manual oversight will give way to machine-led governance, transforming global operations from people management to platform management.
Done right, AI enables firms to deliver advisory services faster, with greater clarity, and with more personality.
3. The Capacity Myth Fades as Technology Rewrites How Firms Serve Clients
Capacity has historically been the profession’s constraint. But Tim sees a turning point: automation and more sophisticated global delivery models will make it possible to serve all clients profitably, just in differentiated ways.
The outdated belief that firms must “trim the tail” will diminish. Technology levels the playing field so firms can maintain high-quality service to both complex clients and smaller ones. The firms that enable their people with better tools and training will stand out—especially as fewer professionals enter the field.
4. Recurring Revenue Is Still King—But Pattern Recognition Will Become the New Leadership Superpower
In 2026, the markers of sustained performance remain unchanged: recurring revenue, retention, margin growth, and efficiency. But Tim emphasizes that metrics alone are insufficient.
Leaders will need to interpret macro shifts and translate them into strategy quickly. They must communicate clearly, prioritize ruthlessly, and protect their teams’ time. In an environment overflowing with opportunities to “fix things,” the best leaders will focus on foundational elements first—and allow subsequent improvements during future bounces.
5. HR Becomes a Strategic Engine—Where Culture, Communication, and Skills Define Enterprise Value
Erin McAuley expects the people function to experience its most significant evolution yet.
“Change doesn’t break people. Silence does,” she notes. Winning the talent narrative means overcommunicating during transitions, even when not all the answers are known.
Engagement, leadership trust, and values alignment will increasingly sit alongside EBITDA in deal assessments. Erin warns that skipping cultural diligence has measurable costs—attrition, client loss, integration fatigue—while getting it right early leads to faster synergies.
Skills-based workforce design becomes the new operating model. Firms will shift from organizing people by hierarchy to organizing them by potential and value creation.
“You can’t bonus your way to belonging,” Erin emphasizes. Culture carriers and middle-out leadership will sustain loyalty long after the deal closes.
Assimilation is an outdated playbook. The future is about building something better together—constructing a shared identity with intention.
People leaders will sit at the deal table as strategic partners connecting people insights to enterprise value.
6. Global Talent Models Shift from Cost to Capability
Hiral sees 2026 as the year the global talent map is completely rewritten.
Shared time zones, cultural alignment, and bilingual talent make Latin America a new frontier for digital operations.
Vietnam and Malaysia emerge as new digital production hubs as global delivery moves beyond India.
Humans, freelancers, and AI agents will collaborate as one ecosystem. Firms that intentionally design these systems—not just manage them—will leap ahead.
Hiral notes that the future belongs to firms that co-own innovation with partners and use automation for scale, reserving human talent for context, empathy, and creativity.
The rise of the “7Cs:” capability, communication, compliance, commercial, culture compatibility, criterion, and change—will define a new operating system for global delivery.
What These Trends All Have in Common
The throughline across every prediction is unmistakable: the firms that will win in 2026 are not chasing scale for scale’s sake. They’re building with intention—grounded in clarity, strengthened by capability, and anchored in culture.
Technology will undoubtedly accelerate the work. But people will continue to define its value. The next era of our profession belongs to firms that invest just as deeply in trust, belonging, and shared purpose as they do in platforms and performance. Where growth expands opportunity rather than erodes connection. Where progress feels human, not transactional.
That’s the future we believe in at Springline: firms that are bold in ambition, disciplined in execution, and deeply human at their core. Big enough to create opportunity. Small enough to keep people at the center. Built to scale—with soul.
