All I want for Christmas is MCP servers. I've learned in the last few weeks about the Digits WRITE MCP access, the Pilot MCP's for QBO and Xero, and many more at @cpapracadvisor @CPA Practice Advisor . Folks, this is where the rubber meets the road on AI - MCP is a machine to machine connection to facilitate the AI engine asking questions and the related application/server providing the responsive data. It is the Rosetta Stone. Truly, we live in interesting times. starter.meridian.pilot.com/?…

NEW PODCAST EPISODE: ATL278 — "Covered-ish: Microsoft, Google, OpenAI, Anthropic and the AI Liability Question". Four major AI vendors, different contractual promises, and one crucial question: Who owns the risk? Available NOW at cpate.ch/278?utm_source=twit…

When you have decades of anti-carbon policies and regulatory lawfare against refineries to prevent building more capacity, you should not be surprised when (1) total refining capacity shrinks, (2) susceptibility to refinery interruptions skyrockets and (3) prices rise significantly and margins for the remaining refiners go through the roof. Refineries take decades to permit, construct, and bring online. Current prices are a delayed result of the long term war on carbon started by Al Gore and the left back in the 1980s. You cannot attempt to regulate the supply of a product out of the economy and then complain that prices are going up when you are incorrect about the demand of consumers for that product. It has always been like this- there is no excess capacity. When Gavin Newsom and the loony left finally kill two major refineries (20% of capacity) in a state with few pipelines and state-mandated special fuel formulas AND Ukraine knocks significant Russian refineries offline, prices are headed up. If you don’t want the price spikes and higher cost of refining, stop blocking increases to refinery construction. Prices are how the economy tells us that people want more or less of something. Governments of the world have declared war on “climate change” and have set policies to reduce use of carbon-based fossil fuels like gas, diesel, and natural gas. Those same politicians do not then get to blame others when the natural increases in prices that were caused by the fact that the people want less money expensive gas prices. This is a classic example of the left blaming someone else when their policies operate EXACTLY as intended and make gas UNAFFORDABLE for ordinary citizens. Congratulations, Newsom and Obama. You got your way. Now we all have to live with the consequences of the regulatory barriers you have placed in the way of letting the market create new drilling and new refineries to address the supply and demand imbalance of gas and diesel. wsj.com/business/energy-oil/…

What can technology M&A tell us about the future? Quite a bit. AI routers. Agents. Edge AI. Data platforms. Coding tools. First-party data. Follow the money in ATL277: Technology Mergers and Acquisitions. #AccountingTech #AI Watch here=> cpate.ch/277

One of the biggest risks of software consolidation isn't necessarily that your application disappears tomorrow. It may simply become financially unavailable after years of price increases. That's why we recommend revisiting contingency plans after an acquisition. Learn about how tech M&A is shaping the future of all professions and the components of your next technology stack in ATL277, Technology Mergers & Acquisitions at cpate.ch/277.

Salesforce + Fin. NVIDIA + Hugging Face. SpaceX + Cursor. Stripe + OpenRouter. These aren't random deals. They're strategic bets on where AI is going next. Randy Johnston and Brian Tankersley connect the dots on ATL277: Technology Mergers and Acquisitions. #AccountingTech #AI

ATL272- The Gathering Storm is a warning about a significant change in the op tempo of cybercriminals and how AI is changing the security, not a prediction of doom. Over 900 vulnerabilities were patched in September’s Microsoft Patch Tuesday, up from an average of 90-100 per month in 2024. Delaying software updates is riskier than ever in this environment. Use the time you have now to harden, patch, rehearse, test, inventory, and govern. Listen now cpate.ch/272 Accounting Technology Lab. #CPA #AccountingTechnology #Cybersecurity

Your software vendor just got acquired. Now what? In ATL277, Randy Johnston and Brian Tankersley look beyond the M&A headlines to the questions accounting firms should be asking about pricing, product roadmaps, integrations, security, and contingency plans. Coming this Friday at noon ET at cpate.ch/277 or at cpapracticeadvisor.com/podca… #AccountingTechnology #MergersAndAcquisitions #CPA

What happens when you give eleven AI agents jobs, personalities, responsibilities—and enough autonomy to expose everything that can go brilliantly right and spectacularly wrong? I’m particularly proud of this ATL episode, which explores learnings from a particularly interesting project- a completely virtual accounting firm with one human and eleven agents. Watch here: cpate.ch/276 ——— In ATL276, Randy Johnston and Brian Tankersley sit down with Alexis Kingsbury, author of Accrual Intentions, to unpack what he learned from building a deliberately extreme experiment: an accountancy practice staffed by eleven AI agents with their own roles, personalities, and responsibilities. Kingsbury explains that the project began as part parody and part management-science experiment, but quickly became a practical test of delegation, workflow design, controls, and human judgment.

Automated hacks using frontier AI models. apple.news/A7qmRjw5JSEqLOynu… (this one was Claude used to hack OpenAI). This is why you need to batten down the hatches on security before it’s too late. @RPJohnston and I discussed this in Accounting Tech Lab episode 272, “The Gathering Storm”. Listen at cpate.ch/272

Here’s a friendly reminder: data centers in war zones are not protected from attack by weapons, so if you have data in data centers, back it up. wsj.com/world/middle-east/aw…

Tax pros: I had an interesting demo today from ExpenseBot - it mines GMail (but not MS365) for multiple years of receipts, integrates with Claude and ChatGPT, has all manner of integrations, including an MCP server integration which can be used by your AI to access its data, and has many more capabilities. Definitely a tool to help with those shoebox clients that use Google Workspace or GMail extensively. More info: Accountants: cpate.ch/expbotcpa Clients: cpate.ch/expensebot #taxtwitter

Coming to the Accounting Tech Lab next Friday - [I think it's a record for my worst pun ever] "What Tokens are You Smokin'?" ==>Whenever you use AI, you're just smokin' a bunch of tokens. Like gas to your car (or your lawnmower, or your chainsaw), AI compute power is really just a bunch of tokens - and you can use them for different purposes. You can also buy them from many different sources, not just direct through "all you can eat" subs. Coming Friday 9/18/2026 at noon ET! Join our premiere at cpate.ch/275

ChatGPT Is a Huge Snitch - New York Magazine apple.news/A-9X87aFGT8eV2zTH…