Citrin Cooperman’s Strategic Investment in Tellen Is a Joint Bet on the Future of Audit

Last week, we announced Citrin Cooperman’s strategic investment in Tellen. The investment itself is important. But to me, the bigger story is what it represents.

It represents a joint bet on where audit is going:

• A bet that AI will become a core part of how audit work is planned, executed, reviewed, documented, and monitored.
• A bet that the most valuable audit AI will not be generic, but firm-specific and grounded in each firm’s methodology, workflows, quality standards, and institutional knowledge.
• A bet that audit AI has to be quality-first, because in audit, durable productivity comes from getting the work right earlier, not simply moving faster.
• A bet that AI agents will need to work where auditors already work, inside the tools, files, and systems they use every day.
• A bet that the future of audit will not be built by technology companies in isolation. It will be built with the firms doing the work.

That is why our relationship with Citrin Cooperman matters so much to us.

Audit Is Not a Generic AI Problem

Audit is one of the most complex workflows in the professional services industry. It is governed by professional standards, firm methodologies, quality management requirements, regulatory oversight, documentation expectations, and decades of accumulated institutional knowledge.

The future of audit will not be created by simply attaching a large language model to existing workflows. And it will not be solved by placing a handful of former auditors inside a model lab and calling that domain expertise.

That experience matters. But audit is a living workflow. The real complexity shows up inside active engagements: how teams plan the work, how evidence is requested and evaluated, how workpapers are prepared, how reviewers challenge conclusions, how methodology is applied, how exceptions are resolved, and how quality is monitored across the firm.

Useful audit AI has to understand that reality. That kind of understanding cannot be developed from the outside. It has to be built alongside the professionals performing the work every day.

The Best Audit Technology Is Built Alongside Auditors

One of the most important lessons we have learned is that the best audit technology is not designed in isolation and then handed to firms after the fact. It is surfaced through collaboration with the people doing the work. That means building with partners, managers, reviewers, quality leaders, and staff who are working under real deadlines, applying real methodology, and dealing with real client evidence.

Our forward-deployed engineering model is simple: we build close to the work.

Tellen engineers work directly with audit professionals to understand how work actually moves through an engagement, where teams lose time, where review comments repeat, where documentation breaks down, and where firm methodology needs to be applied more consistently. Our relationship with Citrin Cooperman allows us to continue building this way. Together, Tellen engineers and Citrin Cooperman professionals are designing, refining, and deploying AI-powered audit agents that work inside real audit workflows, not around them.

The Future Is Firm-Specific AI

The first generation of AI tools focused on providing answers. The next generation will focus on execution.

For audit firms, that execution has to be firm-specific. Every accounting firm has its own methodology, review processes, quality standards, templates, policies, systems, and institutional knowledge.

Our vision is not to create one giant AI model for the accounting profession. Our vision is to help every firm build its own AI-enabled operating environment, grounded in its own methodology, workflows, policies, and knowledge.

That is where we believe the real value will be created. Not in generic answers that look the same for every firm, but in AI systems that understand how a specific firm works, how it documents, how it reviews, how it applies methodology, and how it manages quality.

Through our work with Citrin Cooperman, we will continue advancing that vision by deploying AI within their private environment and building around their workflows, data, and expertise.

Quality Is the Foundation for Productivity in Audit

There is no shortage of discussion about AI-driven productivity. That discussion matters. Audit firms are under real pressure from talent shortages, increasing complexity, compressed timelines, and growing client expectations. But in audit, productivity cannot come at the expense of quality. A faster audit process that creates more review comments, weaker documentation, inconsistent execution, or more partner intervention is not real productivity. It is just work moving faster until it has to be redone.

That is why Tellen takes a quality-first approach.

We believe the most valuable AI systems in audit will be the ones that help teams get the work right earlier. That means helping auditors apply firm methodology more consistently, identify issues sooner, document judgments more clearly, prepare workpapers that are easier to review, and reduce the rework that slows engagements down.

When quality improves at the source, productivity improves naturally. Review cycles become shorter. Teams spend less time cleaning up documentation. Managers and partners spend less time chasing the same issues. Firms get more leverage from their people without weakening professional judgment or governance.

Agents Should Work Where Auditors Work

If AI is going to become a core part of audit execution, it cannot live only in a separate application that auditors have to leave their workflow to use. Auditors already spend their day inside workpapers, financial statements, confirmations, schedules, PDFs, Microsoft Word, Excel, SharePoint, and audit platforms. The next generation of audit agents needs to work inside that environment.

This is one of the areas where we are especially excited about what we are building at Tellen.

Our agents work alongside auditors directly in the applications they use every day, including Microsoft Word and Excel. That matters because adoption in audit is not just about having powerful AI. It is about putting that AI in the right place, at the right moment, with the right context. No extra steps. No disconnected workflow. No asking auditors to change the way they work before the technology has earned the right to do so.

The goal is simple: AI agents that work alongside auditors, inside the flow of real audit work.

Building the Accounting Firm of the Future

The accounting profession is entering a period of significant change. Talent shortages, increasing complexity, growing client expectations, regulatory pressure, and rapid advances in AI are reshaping how firms operate. But the firms that lead this next era will not simply adopt new technology after it is built. They will help shape it. That is why Citrin Cooperman’s strategic investment in Tellen matters. We are grateful for Citrin Cooperman’s partnership and excited about what we will build together. The AI-enabled future of audit is no longer a concept. It is being built today.