The Accounting Disruptors: Episode 6 | The Data Bottleneck — AI Tax Automation w/ Abacus

Cody Sugarman, co-founder of Abacus, joins Wiss CEO Paul Peterson and Tech Practice Partner Matt Barbieri to discuss how artificial intelligence is tackling the most overlooked bottleneck in tax practice — data ingestion. In this conversation, Cody shares how two brothers with zero accounting background built a product that's now selling into nearly 10 of the top 100 firms, and why the mid-market has a bigger AI advantage right now than the Big 4. In This Episode: Why data ingestion, not tax expertise , is the real bottleneck holding firms back from doing their best work How Abacus signed a six-figure contract before the product was built, and what that says about the size of the problem Why mid-market firms now have a technology advantage over the Big 4, and what they need to do to keep it How embedded client "playbooks" take Abacus from a 30% solution to a 70–80% solution Why the firms waiting for a perfect out-of-the-box AI solution are already falling behind About the Guest: Cody Sugarman is the co-founder of Abacus, an AI-powered tax data ingestion platform built for complex returns — ultra-high-net-worth individuals, family offices, trusts, and partnerships. Before Abacus, Cody and his brother Grant built and scaled multiple ventures out of Stanford, where all three Sugarman brothers attended and founded companies. About the Series: The Accounting Disruptors Podcast features conversations with innovators who are reshaping accounting through technology, strategy, and vision. Hosted by Paul Peterson, CEO of Wiss. 🔗 Learn more about Abacus: https://www.abacus.com 🔗 Learn more about Wiss: https://www.wiss.com #Accounting #AI #ArtificialIntelligence #AccountingFirm #CPA #Abacus #TaxTech #Automation #FutureOfWork #AccountingTech