Rocky Ozaki, CEO of The Now of Work, shares key learnings from helping hundreds of organizations adopt AI and explores why CPAs can play a critical role in ensuring those efforts deliver real value. Don’t miss his session, Organizational AI Adoption: CPA’s Strategic Role at CPABC’s Infinite Conference from Nov. 26-27!
As organizations adopt artificial intelligence (AI), success depends on more than selecting and deploying new tools. According to Rocky Ozaki, CEO of The Now of Work, CPAs are uniquely equipped to lead AI initiatives since they bring a combination of strategic thinking, risk management, governance expertise, and accountability. Recently, Rocky shared key learnings from helping hundreds of organizations adopt AI and explored why CPAs can play a critical role in ensuring those efforts deliver real value.
You’ve said CPAs are uniquely positioned to drive AI adoption. Why?
Before I started my business, I was an executive at large organizations. I mention that because I saw how different department heads were perceived, and people trusted the CPAs. They believed in the rigor, discipline, and training that CPAs brought.
More pragmatically, CPAs sit at the intersection of strategy, risk, governance, and operations. They’re trained to evaluate evidence, assess controls, identify risk, and ensure accountability. Those same skills are essential for AI adoption.
Many people focus on the question of what AI can do. I see CPAs asking more important questions like, “Should we use it? Can we trust it? How do we measure value? How do we govern it?”
Your company has supported hundreds of organizations in adopting AI. Can you share a key pillar of this training?
Most organizations suffer from shiny-object syndrome – they lead with tools. They say things like, “Let’s use this software because our competitors are” or “Let’s use Copilot because we’re in the Microsoft ecosystem.”
When you start with a business problem that you’re trying to solve, you start to unleash real value. A key pillar, the number one question every individual and organization needs to ask is: “What problem are we trying to solve?” Starting here leads to better decisions, more productivity, and real business outcomes.
Can you comment on the human side of AI adoption?
In my view, AI adoption is more about people, change management and culture transformation than it is about technology. Some employees worry AI is being brought in to take away their jobs. I use a term called FOBO to describe this: Fear of Becoming Obsolete. In fact, a recent study found that 44% of Gen Z workers are sabotaging their company’s AI strategy.
Other employees are at organizations that don’t have an AI strategy or that limit how they can use AI. These people are probably thinking, “I have to protect my career and future-proof myself.” They are turning to “shadow AI” – using tools the organization doesn’t know about and possibly putting sensitive information into them.
There’s a misconception that AI transformation is just about unleashing tools. My view is that we should focus on human-centered AI transformation.
How can CPAs lead human-centered AI adoption?
We want to democratize AI, meaning everyone in the organization should have access to it. We also want to involve people early on. Instead of leadership deciding where AI should be used, ask employees what problems they’re trying to solve. This allows people to have a voice early in the change process. Use their input to create an AI backlog, or a list of problems that AI can help solve.
Next, move to opt-in pilots:
- Present a problem to a small group, for example, your finance team.
- Identify an AI tool that can help solve the problem.
- Establish success metrics.
- Ask who wants to participate.
The participants can then co-design and iterate on the solution and evaluate if the tool brings value. If the pilot succeeds, the participants become peer evangelists by telling other employees how the tool brings value. Employees who doubted or feared AI are much more likely to adopt it if they hear about its value from team members rather than management.
You’ve talked about innovation accounting. What is it and how can CPAs use it to measure the success of AI adoption?
Innovation accounting measures the pulse of your organization and how fast it can embrace, implement, and get value from innovation. It looks at things like what percentage of employees contribute ideas, how fast an organization moves from a problem to solve to a pilot, and how quickly it can go from an idea to adoption across the organization.
For example, when you ask employees for issues that AI could help solve, you can measure how many suggest potential solutions and use cases. A company might start with 40% participation and reach 80% within six months. That’s a measure of innovation capacity.
Measuring speed is another example. If it takes three months for one team to adopt a new tool, two months for the next team, and one month for the team after that, that’s innovation accounting. These metrics are indicators of organizational agility. They show how quickly an organization can embrace, scale, and realize value from innovation.
Can you share a best practice for AI adoption that CPAs can use immediately?
One best practice is the 3P model – pivot, persevere, or punt. Every AI use case is a pilot, so at some point, you should stop and ask which of the three applies.
- Pivot: You’re getting value from the use case but need to make adjustments.
- Persevere: The use case is working, there’s unquestionable ROI, and the organization should expand its use.
- Punt: It’s not working – people don’t like it, it’s not meeting its metrics, or it’s not delivering value.
When you pause to do the 3P model, be okay with punting. Forget sunk costs – you fail fast, you learn faster. AI isn’t always going to work.
How can CPAs evolve their careers in the age of AI?
First, learn the foundations. Understand how AI works, what it can do, prompting, workflows, and the broader ecosystem around it. Alongside that, maintain curiosity. Value experimentation. Be willing to operate in grey areas. When you pair a growth mindset with the rigor, discipline, and strategic skills that CPAs bring, that combination is unstoppable.
Leah Giesbrecht is a communications specialist at CPABC.
