Start Where You Are: What We Learned at the AI in Practice Summit

New to AI? You're in good company. 17 practitioners share how they're using AI in their firms — and how you can take a confident first step, whatever your starting point.

The Firm · 15 June 2026 · 6 min read

For two days, 17 sessions, and a few thousand accountants and bookkeepers, the AI in Practice Summit answered one question: not whether AI belongs in your firm, but how to actually use it — this week, with the tools and the team you already have.

It wasn't a vendor showcase. Almost every speaker was a practitioner showing real builds, real implementations and real lessons. They even disagreed productively — one session is literally titled I Vibe Code. You Probably Shouldn't (Yet) — and that range of honest views is exactly what made it so useful.

Here's what we took away. Every session is available in full on the summit hub: a plain-English summary, the key lessons, the tools mentioned, and a complete, searchable transcript — recorded and transcribed by Vinyl, the platinum partner that powered the whole event.

The through-line: you can start where you are

The most encouraging takeaway? You don't need to be technical, and you don't need to do everything at once. Mike Libbey, an accountant who doesn't call himself a developer, has built 40+ internal tools and reframed the goal simply: become "a firm that builds exactly what we need, when we need it." Mark Wickersham, 35 years a chartered accountant who can't write a line of code, built a working app live on stage. The barrier isn't technical skill anymore — it's just making a start, with a community around you to help.

1. Vibe coding has crossed from novelty to normal

Session after session was a live build with no code written by hand: an internal AI tool, a client onboarding flow, a pricing calculator, a financial-planning app. In Real Firms, Real Builds, three practitioners compared notes on what they've shipped. The consistent advice: start with one small tool that solves one annoyance, build the rough version first, and plan before you prompt.

2. Context is the whole game

The difference between a generic chatbot and something genuinely useful is context. Ben Walker runs a "master prompt" holding 338,000+ words about his firm. Anderson Peter George showed that a pricing tool is only as good as the framework you feed it. Twyla Verhelst made the same point at the firm level: the firms winning with AI aren't using it the most — they're using it with the most intention: written strategy, clean SOPs, reusable skills.

3. Guardrails keep you safe — and that's reassuring

Damon Anderson gave the line of the summit: clients pay you to take the worry off their plate, and no model can carry that responsibility — which is exactly why your judgement still matters. Dave Sellick and Jonathan Gaunt covered the practical safeguards, and Corey Cacic showed how AI can speed up even AML compliance when you keep a human in the loop. The takeaway for newcomers: a few simple guardrails let you experiment with confidence.

4. Your meetings are the most under-used asset in the firm

This is where AI quietly pays for itself. Trent McLaren showed how every client conversation hides advisory signals — and how mining transcripts surfaced a £24,000 opportunity a team had missed. Ben Walker drafted proposals straight from a meeting transcript in minutes. The common thread: you can't act on what you don't capture — and a word-for-word transcript (exactly what Vinyl produces automatically) turns conversations into notes, proposals and advisory revenue.

5. Claude vs Copilot: you're not behind

Inbal Rodnay ran the same tasks in both tools and offered the reassurance many firms needed: most firms are sensibly on Copilot, and if you're hearing the Claude noise, you're not behind — you're hearing the early adopters experimenting. Wherever you're starting, that's perfectly fine.

The lessons, in one place

  1. Start with one small tool that removes one real annoyance.
  2. Plan before you prompt — write the brief, then build.
  3. Build the simple version first; polish later.
  4. Feed the AI your firm's context; it's the difference-maker.
  5. A clear framework beats a pretty interface, every time.
  6. Add a few simple guardrails before using client data.
  7. Keep a human in the loop — your judgement is the value.
  8. Capture every client conversation and learn from it.
  9. Use AI with intention — a little strategy goes a long way.
  10. You don't have to do it alone, or all at once.

Watch, read, and take one small step

Every session is available on demand with a summary, key lessons, the tools mentioned and the full transcript. Browse by track, search for a speaker or tool, and start with whichever one feels closest to your world.

And if there's one habit to borrow from the summit, it's this: capture your conversations. The transcripts behind this whole library were produced by Vinyl, the AI meeting assistant built for accounting and bookkeeping firms — so the next good idea in your firm doesn't slip through the cracks. Try Vinyl free →

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