GenAI in practice - How firms use AI, featuring Justine Marshall

It feels like software vendors want to pigeonhole firms into a nice, neat box. They’ve got their own idea of the technology and tools that accountants need, and there’s little flexibility or openness to hearing feedback (despite what they say). They fundamentally don’t understand 100% of what we do (despite what they think). So when a tool is genuinely useful for us, it’s usually siloed and focused on just one part of the business. 

That’s why we’re seeing more firms and firm owners branching off to build software solutions of their own. Stepping into the role of engineer, these experts are armed with lived experience and years of accounting know-how. They’re bridging the gap that today’s software offering can’t or just won’t fill. They’re building with empathy and nuance - something that third-party vendors have typically always lacked (despite what they profess).

In Justine Marshall’s case, she’s visualised what she wants using Claude Cowork and hired an offshore software engineer to make it happen: “I said to him, ‘Look, I’d really like to do this myself, but I don’t have the time’. I built out the front end of how I want it to look, and he’s bringing all the APIs together into one application.”

It just goes to show that if you’ve got a foundational understanding of what the technology can do, then that’s enough, with the right support, to bring a product to life. And with GenAI, “it’s an awful lot easier than you’d imagine.”