ATL273 — Reinventing Your Practice with Advisory With Guest Nancy Sperry of Sage

• Episode: ATL273
• Release date: September 4, 2026
• Hosts: Randy Johnston and Brian F. Tankersley, CPA.CITP, CGMA
• Guest: Nancy Sperry, Senior Vice President of U.S. Partner Sales, Sage
• Approximate runtime: 33 minutes
• Primary topic: Using trusted AI, agentic automation, and the Sage partner ecosystem to move accounting professionals from transaction processing toward higher-value advisory work.

• Trust is the gating factor for accounting AI. Explainability, auditability, approval workflows, security, and accountability matter as much as model capability.
• Advisory becomes more practical when the mechanical work shrinks. Automation can move professionals away from manipulating data and toward interpreting what the numbers mean.
• Finance will not become autonomous overnight. Sperry notes that only a small portion of finance functions are autonomous today; confidence must be earned through reliable results and controls.
• Agents create a new partner opportunity. Sage partners may be able to build agents for specific client problems and then distribute reusable solutions through a broader marketplace.
• Industry specialization can get much deeper. AI and agent builders may allow firms to move beyond broad verticals such as construction into highly specialized micro-vertical workflows.
• MCP and cross-system agents can change the technology stack. Agents that work across systems such as CRM, payroll, and ERP could eliminate some traditional integration layers—but also introduce new security concerns.
• Advisory becomes forward-looking. The opportunity is to spend less time looking through the rearview mirror and more time helping clients see through the windshield.
• Human oversight remains essential. The accountant, CFO, or advisor remains responsible for consequential decisions even when AI performs more of the underlying work.
• Sage is broadening the platform around finance, HR, payroll, expenses, construction, forecasting, practice management, and other adjacent workflows.
• The strategic opportunity is bigger than efficiency. AI can change the relationship between the accounting professional and the client by making interpretation, specialization, and continuous advice economically feasible.

• 00:55 — Nancy Sperry: “AI is the most exciting and really going faster than either of those two kind of major changes.”
• 04:34 — Nancy Sperry: “Anything that is explainable and that I can click through and see the result… gives a lot of confidence.”
• 06:48 — Brian Tankersley: “When the math’s not mathing, it’s not good for anybody in accounting.”
• 08:24 — Nancy Sperry: “I see it being a really big revolution in the relationship.”
• 10:37 — Nancy Sperry: “Turn the headlights on and see into the future.”
• 13:36 — Nancy Sperry: Partners can “solve real business problems that are really critically important to that client.”
• 15:58 — Randy Johnston: Advisory is “looking out the windshield as opposed to looking in the rearview mirror.”
• 20:44 — Nancy Sperry: “Partners are the intersection of that for us at Sage.”
• 26:26 — Nancy Sperry: Sage’s “glass box approach” is designed to provide confidence, control, oversight, and accountability.
• 31:39 — Nancy Sperry: AI creates an opportunity for partners “to just create amazing outcomes.”