Karbon launches AI community platform for accountants

Karbon has launched The Loft, a community and training platform for accountants and bookkeepers focused on AI. The platform is open to professionals across the sector, with some areas reserved for Karbon customers.

The launch comes as accounting firms weigh how to use artificial intelligence in daily work, while many still lack formal staff training. Karbon's research found that 85% of accountants are excited about AI, yet 57% of firms offer no AI training to their teams.

The Loft is intended as a shared space for peer discussion, networking and practical education. It combines open community forums with workshops and benchmarking tools to help firms compare their AI progress with others in the profession.

The platform has two parts. One area is limited to Karbon customers, who can exchange workflows, operational knowledge and practical experience with other users. A second is open to any accounting or bookkeeping professional, whether or not they use Karbon's software or subscribe to its publications.

Karbon is building the platform around the existing audience of 80,000 weekly readers of Karbon Magazine. The publication's articles and ideas will now sit alongside discussion spaces where users can respond to and debate topics raised in its editorial content.

Among the new tools is an AI readiness assessment that gives firms a scorecard and suggested next steps. The benchmarking system draws on three years of Karbon industry research data.

The company is also offering free virtual workshops where members share working methods and use cases. A prompt library, organised by task type, is also part of the service.

The broader aim is to give firms access to examples from peers facing similar pressures related to automation, staffing, and process change. In accounting, where many practices remain small or midsized, learning from comparable firms can carry more weight than generic software guidance or one-off vendor training.

Karbon also framed the launch as a response to the profession's long-standing reliance on informal networks. Accountants and bookkeepers often exchange advice through local associations, specialist groups and client referral circles, and the company is seeking to formalise some of that exchange in an online setting.

One part of the offer focuses on partnerships and referrals, connecting firm leaders and practitioners across the US, UK, Australia, New Zealand and other markets. That reflects Karbon's international customer base and its effort to position The Loft as a cross-border professional network rather than just a product support forum.

Mary Delaney, Chief Executive Officer of Karbon, set out the company's view of the profession's current position.

"Accounting is changing faster than any one firm can navigate on their own," said Delaney. "But this profession has always had something special: people who are genuinely willing to share what they know and lift everyone around them. We've had the privilege of building a community of professionals who show up for that. The Loft is about giving them a home to do it together, and honoring how much further we all go when the whole profession advances at once."

The launch also adds a community layer to Karbon's wider software business. The company is known for practice management tools that help accounting firms organise work and client communication, and The Loft extends that relationship into training, peer exchange and professional development.

The move reflects a broader shift in business software, as vendors increasingly try to build user communities around their products and adjacent services. In professional services, those communities can help suppliers stay close to changing workflows while giving customers more direct access to examples from firms doing similar work.

For accountants, AI adoption remains uneven. Some firms are experimenting with prompts, workflow automation and document drafting, while others are still working out how to train staff, manage risk and decide which tasks are suitable for automation. The readiness assessment and community discussions appear to be aimed at firms in that middle ground: interested in AI but unsure how far along they are or what practical steps should come next.

Twyla Verhelst, Vice President of Industry Relations and Community at Karbon, said the platform is meant to build on the profession's existing culture of information sharing.

"The accounting community has always had incredible generosity in it," said Verhelst. "The most successful firm leaders I know are the ones who share openly and bring others with them. The Loft is designed to put that instinct at the center, and give every professional a way to find their people, learn from them, and add to the conversation."