Karbon joins the rush to AI practice management

The initial version of Karbon AI is focused on making firms more efficient with email and how accountants communicate with clients.

Powered by Microsoft Azure's OpenAI service, the first ‘beta’ release of Karbon AI has shipped with the following features:

Inbox prioritisation: Analysing urgency, sentiment and tone, Karbon AI flags emails that need immediate attention and prioritise them above those that can wait.

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Email and internal discussion summaries: This function breaks long email chains or internal discussions down into bite-sized summaries, allowing the reader an overview before deciding to dig down into a lengthy and potentially time-consuming series of messages.

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Draft an email: Based on keywords in previous conversations or short prompts from the user, Karbon AI can create the first draft of an email. Users can then review and amend the draft before sending it.

Schedule email prompts or updates: Users can set up a task within their Karbon workflow to automatically draft an email to clients at certain points, for example when documentation is needed or to update them as the job progresses. These emails are still subject to a human pressing send.

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Modify writing tone: From a preset list, users can adjust the tone of their messages, making them more conversational, direct, apologetic or neutral.

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Just the beginning

“Artificial intelligence and GPT technology are most useful when integrated into the tools that you already work with,” said Karbon CEO Mary Delaney, commenting on the release. “When artificial intelligence is in the context of your workflow, it can be prompted by your existing data without relinquishing privacy or security. As a truly connected practice management solution, Karbon is home to more context than any other tool in an accounting firm’s workflow, and is open to vast possibilities with AI.”

Karbon chief product officer Sara Goepel added that while the initial email enhancements are an important first step, there is more planned. “Large parts of an accountant’s day are driven by email,” said Goepel. “This is just the beginning. We are continuing to develop Karbon AI and expand what it can do with data across the collaborative workflow to automate more tasks, save more time, and add more value to accounting firms and their clients.”

At present, there is no additional charge to use the Karbon AI Beta. Karbon told AccountingWEB there will be an additional cost at some point in the future, but this change will be communicated to all Karbon customers in advance.

Those looking for more details on Karbon’s AI tool can view a recording of Karbon’s Product Roadmap webinar here.