The opportunity
Thomson Reuters CoCounsel was piloted as a solution to streamline research, ensure quality, and stay ahead of technological advancements. This initiative positions them as leaders in leveraging AI to drive business outcomes.
Introduction — A new frontier
CoCounsel advances workflow and technology at Plante Moran
Precision and productivity
CoCounsel’s integration enhances Plante Moran’s audit technology, tools, processes, and efficiencies, setting new standards for excellence.
Enhanced capabilities
AI integration in CoCounsel elevates Plante Moran’s efficiencies and future-proofs various audit practices.
Thoughtful innovation and rigorous security
Plante Moran, with guidance from CoCounsel, implements the latest AI technologies while ensuring strict security measures. The collaboration includes new AI security protocols and robust software controls, safeguarding data and maintaining industry-leading standards.
Embracing innovation
CoCounsel’s effectiveness and its potential for widespread adoption in an internal survey with Plante Moran’s 140+ pilot program participants, who provided honest and anonymous feedback about their experience.
Key outcomes
“Time savings” was the most referenced benefit in open-answer feedback.
Thomson Reuters continually innovates and improves our solutions based on feedback from trusted partners like Plante Moran
Their insights and feedback have been instrumental in shaping CoCounsel into a tool that better serves accountants around the world. It’s partnerships like this that enable us to set new standards and continually improve our offerings for the entire industry.
- Nearly all respondents (96%) either strongly agreed or agreed that CoCounsel is a useful tool for practice staff members.
- A large majority of respondents (91%) reported that CoCounsel was faster than traditional methods of research and finding answers.
- Most respondents (87%) felt the firm should purchase CoCounsel and make it available to all staff.
CoCounsel was used to help unblock complex, novel work, providing a starting point for users to get on the right path and brainstorm solutions.
These results highlight CoCounsel’s value in enhancing productivity, efficiency, and confidence among Plante Moran’s staff.
- After using CoCounsel, 77% of respondents felt more confident using generative AI tools.
- Significant efficiency and time savings improvements during technical research were reported by 62% of respondents using CoCounsel.
- Once CoCounsel was available, 58% of respondents started using other tools less frequently.
Power of the possible: Firm-wide adoption
The integration of CoCounsel across Plante Moran’s team has shown potential for enhancing productivity at all firm levels.
Adoption readiness
Based on the internal survey, Pilot users surveyed felt that the tool would have the greatest impact at the senior, manager, and senior manager or principal level.
- Partner — 83%
- Manager — 96%
- Senior — 96%
- Senior manager or principal — 90%
- Potential adoption — 84%
Why CoCounsel?
Plante Moran was eager to enhance their auditing processes with an advanced AI tool but took the time to evaluate several options against a list of essential criteria:
- Authoritative guidance integration for quality and compliance
- Advanced document processing capabilities
- Accurate responses with embedded citations
- Customizable workflows to fit audit procedures
- Potential for future gather and knowledge-based integrations
- User-friendly interface for easy adoption
An additional key driver for choosing CoCounsel included the ease of integrating internal documents and templates into the system, as well as its advanced search functionality, which simplifies finding answers. This ability empowered the audit team to confidently navigate compliance requirements and significantly improve overall efficiency.
Looking ahead CoCounsel's impact at Plante Moran
Since adopting CoCounsel, Plante Moran has scaled its user base 450%, showcasing exceptional innovation in adoption techniques, upskilling, and AI usage to make processes faster than ever — driving significant innovation and creating a ripple effect across their organization.
Investing in AI security
By refining AI security procedures, Plante Moran has boosted efficiency and accuracy, setting industry-leading standards for their clients.
Enhanced accuracy
AI integration has significantly improved operational efficiency, enabling the team to confidently deliver unparalleled value to their client base.
Forward-thinking culture
Equipping every staff member with CoCounsel has positioned Plante Moran as a desirable workplace, offering prospective hires the opportunity to leverage the latest technology.
Continuing the partnership to drive innovation
Following the success of our initial pilot with Plante Moran, they made the strategic decision to deepen their partnership.
Plante Moran’s dedication to embracing revolutionary technology reflects their leadership in the industry, continually pushing the boundaries to enhance efficiency and accuracy in their work.
This commitment involved significantly expanding the number of users on the CoCounsel platform and further integrating it into their audit processes.
About Plante Moran
Plante Moran is among the nation’s largest audit, tax, consulting, and wealth management firms and provides a full line of services to organizations in the following industries — manufacturing and distribution, financial services, service, health care, private equity, public sector, real estate, construction, and energy. Throughout the firm’s 100 years in business, Plante Moran has grown to a staff of more than 3,800 professionals throughout the United States with international offices in Shanghai, China; Mumbai, India; Tokyo, Japan; and Monterrey, Mexico. Plante Moran has been recognized by a number of organizations, including Fortune magazine, as one of the country’s best places to work.
Visit their website for more information.
“Looking Ahead: Thomson Reuters CoCounsel is formerly known as Materia, as reflected in this study.”
