Dec 11, 2024 | AI

Thomson Reuters closed out 2024 with thousands of corporate, legal, tax, audit and accounting customers focusing on the year’s theme: generative AI and innovation. They convened at SYNERGY 2024, the premier annual technology conference for professionals, for eight days of product and innovation announcements, thought-leadership insights and networking opportunities. Below are 2024 product and innovation highlights plus a sneak peek of what’s to come in 2025. 

Thomson Reuters President and CEO Steve Hasker shared a state of the industry outlook, noting generative AI is as disruptive and transformative as previous technology shifts yet is happening even faster. He emphasized what differentiates Thomson Reuters, including investments the company is making in generative AI to enable professionals to accelerate and streamline entire workflows and deliver more value for clients.   

Hasker said Thomson Reuters has invested more than $200M in AI in the last year. He discussed the company’s vision to provide each professional it serves with an AI assistant; the launch of CoCounsel 2.0, which generates answers three times faster than the previous version; and new work with Microsoft on autonomous agents to increase revenue, reduce costs, and scale impact for customers.   

Tax, Audit & Accounting  

“AI is not just changing the landscape of accounting, it’s reshaping it.” That was the message from Elizabeth Beastrom, president of Tax & Accounting at Thomson Reuters.  

While the profession sees AI as a game-changer to help them work differently, tax and accounting professionals also continue to wrestle with the perennial challenge of a talent shortage. This, combined with escalating complexity and more tax regulations, as well as changing client expectations, leaves tax professionals in need of a critical solution. 

Thomson Reuters sees the potential of AI to help alleviate these challenges by augmenting human capabilities. Automating mundane, time-consuming tasks will enhance efficiency for tax professionals, helping them reclaim time to channel into higher value tasks. Thomson Reuters is working to bring the power of generative AI, machine learning and automation into its solutions in the following ways:

1. Saving time in tax preparation:

Coming in beta during the upcoming busy season, Thomson Reuters will launch an AI-assisted tax preparation experience to increase firm efficiency. The solution combines the power of CoCounsel, Thomson Reuters professional-grade generative AI assistant, with workflow automation and software integrations. It supports the delegation of data gathering to simplify mundane tasks and automate tax preparation. Thomson Reuters research shows that customers using this solution will save at least two hours per 1040 tax return on average. 

2. Supporting firms’ growth with advisory:  

As client expectations continue to evolve, they’re increasingly looking to their accountants as trusted advisors. Firms of all sizes are focusing on growing their advisory practices to help bring their clients additional value, as well as supporting their growth. In 2025, the Thomson Reuters Advisory Solution will combine the power of CoCounsel and Checkpoint content to identify advisory opportunities. Advisory services are integrated directly into a firm’s practice, with technology empowering junior staff to take on higher-value advisory work and seasoned professionals to move beyond technical expertise to value-added synthesis.  

“It helps firms build their advisory practice with confidence to deliver unprecedented value to meet clients’ evolving needs,” said Nancy Hawkins, vice president of Product Management, Research. 

3. Transforming audit efficiency: 

Halving sample sizes, boosting efficiency and sharpening the focus on high-risk areas are all at the heart of Thomson Reuters Audit Intelligence Analyze solution, which launched in October. Further functionality will be coming in 2025 as it expands the Audit Intelligence suite capabilities. ‘Test’ will support with automating substantive testing with dynamic transaction tracing, while ‘Plan’ will harness full data populations with cutting-edge analytics for superior risk assessment. Both will launch with beta programs next year, along with the addition of CoCounsel to the Audit Intelligence suite. 

All three solutions – Review Ready, Thomson Reuters Advisory Solution and the Audit Intelligence suite – will be further enhanced with Materia’s generative and agentic AI capabilities. 

Corporates 

Laura Clayton McDonnell, president of the Corporates segment, shared how enterprise technology, including AI and generative AI, is revolutionizing the profession with innovative and emerging solutions. She emphasized that companies are taking a streamlined and proactive approach to addressing risk and compliance across the enterprise, while driving towards their business goals, will maintain their competitive advantage. Clayton McDonnell also shared how organizations are using solutions including ONESOURCE Pagero, CoCounsel Core, Legal Tracker, Checkpoint Edge with CoCounsel and CLEAR to solve challenges and realize value for their business. 

In addition, Ray Grove, head of Corporate Tax and Trade, Thomson Reuters, highlighted the company’s efforts to build a seamless, integrated compliance network, and Kevin Appold, vice president of US Public Records, Thomson Reuters, shared how the company’s risk and fraud solutions play a critical role in the convergence of compliance and commerce. Also, Valerie McConnell, senior director of CoCounsel Customer Success, discussed how CoCounsel is transforming the general counsel’s office. 

Legal 

A highlight from the Legal Professionals segment included an in-depth look at the Thomson Reuters 2025 AI product roadmap from David Wong, chief product officer; Mike Dahn, head of Westlaw Product; and Valerie McConnell, senior director of CoCounsel Customer Success. They outlined upcoming generative AI features and innovations to support legal professionals, including deeper integration of CoCounsel 2.0 in Westlaw and Practical Law plus generative AI research features including Claims Explorer, Mischaracterization Identification in Quick Check and AI Jurisdictional Surveys. 

Legal SYNERGY attendees also participated in interactive sessions and CLE courses on advanced prompting techniques, the science behind large language models, and optimizing generative AI for tasks like drafting and legal research. Sessions offered attendees a comprehensive view of the future of AI in law.  

SYNERGY 2024 also included several customer panels and executive briefing sessions. Watch the Innovation Blog for highlights from these sessions and for 2025 product and innovation highlights.