The accounting profession is arriving at Scaling New Heights 2026 carrying more questions than usual. That is not a complaint. It is the point.

The theme this year is Strange New World, and it is an honest one. The forces reshaping the profession right now are not theoretical. AI is advancing faster than most firms can evaluate it. Economic uncertainty is real and unresolved. Policy changes are arriving without a playbook. Staffing pressures are not easing. Scaled competitors are moving upmarket. M&A is consolidating the landscape at a pace that would have been unthinkable five years ago.

Scaling New Heights 2026, taking place in Orlando from 14 to 17 June, is where over a thousand accountants, bookkeepers, CAS providers, and advisory leaders gather each year to face exactly these kinds of shifts not to absorb information passively, but to make decisions about how they practice, what tools they adopt, and how they grow. AskSOBI will be there at Booth 188, and we are looking forward to the conversations.

Before you walk in the door, though, we think a little preparation goes a long way.

What SNH 2026 is actually about

Scaling New Heights is not a product fair. It is a practice management conference where the sessions, the keynotes, and the conversations on the expo floor all orbit a central question: how do you build a firm that thrives when everything around it is changing?

This year's keynotes reflect the weight of that question. Dr.Daniel Susskind, whose work examines AI and the future of professional work, will challenge assumptions about what technology is actually replacing and what it is not. April Rinne, author of Flux, will argue that the ability to navigate uncertainty not just manage it is the most important professional skill of this decade. Kate O'Neill, the Tech Humanist, will push attendees to ask not just what technology can do, but what it should do, and for whom.

These are not comfortable questions. They are the right ones.

Questions accounting professionals should ask before they arrive

The most useful thing you can do before attending a conference like this, is arrive with honest answers to a few important questions. Not about your software stack or your pricing model. About your practice and where it actually stands.

Is your firm's advisory offering built on structure, or on individual expertise?

Many firms have advisory capability that lives inside one or two senior people. That is a capability, but it is not a service. If your advisory output depends on who is in the room, it cannot scale, and it cannot be priced consistently. SNH will be full of conversations about CAS growth. It is worth knowing before you arrive whether your firm has a model or just a habit.

How are you currently evaluating AI tools and what criteria are you actually using?

There will be over 300 technology vendors at SNH. The question is not whether to adopt AI. It is how to evaluate it without being distracted by what it claims to do versus what it demonstrably does with your clients' actual data. Generic AI tools are useful for many things. Firm-specific, client-specific advisory guidance is not one of them. Arriving with a clear evaluation framework will make the technology floor far more useful.

What does your firm look like to a scaled competitor?

Private equity-backed firms and national aggregators are not waiting. They are already offering clients services that many smaller firms are still planning to build. The question to sit with is not whether the threat is real it is but what the competitive advantage of your firm actually is, and whether your current technology and advisory model supports it or undermines it.

Are you growing your CAS practice, or just discussing it?

CPA.com's 2024 CAS benchmark data showed a median growth rate of 17% for CAS practices. That number is real, but it belongs to firms that have moved from intention to execution. If CAS is still on the roadmap rather than in the monthly workflow, SNH is a good place to change that but only if you have already identified where the bottleneck is.

What is your staffing reality, and is your current workflow honest about it?

Staffing remains one of the most cited pressures in the profession. Before investing in more tools, it is worth asking whether the tools you already have are reducing the burden on your team or adding to it. Complexity is not the same as capability.

Questions business owners should consider especially those whose advisors are attending

If your accountant or CAS provider is heading to SNH, this is a useful moment to reflect on what you need from that relationship.

Am I getting advice or reports?

There is a meaningful difference between a firm that tells you what happened and one that helps you understand what to do next. If your monthly touchpoint with your accountant ends with a summary of the numbers, it may be time to ask whether that relationship is operating at its full potential or whether the firm has the tools and the model to go further.

Do I know what questions I should be asking my advisor every month?

Business owners who get the most from advisory relationships tend to arrive at those conversations with questions, not just an expectation of an update. Knowing what signals matter in your business and asking your advisor to monitor them changes the nature of the conversation entirely.

Is my business data being used, or just stored?

Most businesses sit on more financial and operational data than they use. The value is not in having the data. It is in having a framework and a partner that surfaces what is drifting, what needs attention, and what should happen next.

Where AskSOBI fits

AskSOBI is an AI advisory platform built specifically for accounting firms and the business owners they serve. It is not a general-purpose AI tool adapted for finance. It was built for structured, repeatable, firm-specific advisory the kind that does not depend on a senior partner being available and does not expose sensitive client data to a public language model.

For CAS providers, AskSOBI creates a more consistent advisory workflow: monitoring client signals, surfacing what needs attention each month, and giving teams including junior and mid-level staff a stronger starting point for client conversations. Advisory becomes something the whole firm can deliver, not just the partners.

For business owners, AskSOBI provides the kind of clarity that turns financial data into direction not a dashboard to interpret, but a structured analysis that identifies what is changing, what it means, and what deserves a decision.

At Scaling New Heights, many of the conversations on the expo floor will be about what technology promises. AskSOBI's conversation is about what it actually delivers.

Come and find us

AskSOBI will be at Booth 188, June 14 to 17, at the Orlando Marriott World Centre. If you are attending SNH and want to see how AskSOBI works with your firm's data, book a meeting with the team before the event at asksobi.com.

Ask Better. Advise Smarter. Scale Stronger.