Talk to the Bot

There are very few things in life that accountants are known for.

Attention to detail? Sure.

A love affair with spreadsheets? Absolutely.

Talking to ourselves? Historically, not high on the list.

But I'm here to tell you that if you're using AI and you're not talking to it, you're probably making things harder than they need to be.

Every software company seems to have rolled out an AI tool in the past six months. It doesn't matter whether it's your accounting software, your bank, your credit card provider, or the app that reminds you to drink water. Everybody has a bot now. We're officially in an AI arms race, and everyone is trying to figure out how to get more value from these tools.

As someone who enjoys free software as much as the next accountant, I've been experimenting with just about every AI offering I can get my hands on. Some are great. Some are... trying their best. But after spending a lot of time using these tools, I've noticed one thing:

Most people are dramatically overcomplicating the process.

They sit down at their computer, open ChatGPT, Copilot, Claude, or whichever bot they're using this week, and then spend the next ten minutes trying to craft the perfect prompt.

They write a sentence.

Delete it.

Rewrite it.

Add more detail.

Delete that.

Wonder if they should start over.

Before long, they've spent more time thinking about how to ask the question than they would have spent just solving the problem themselves.

Meanwhile, the people getting the best results are doing something much simpler.

They're talking to the bot.

Stop Writing Essays to the Robot

One of the biggest misconceptions people have about AI is that it expects polished communication.

It doesn't.

The bot doesn't care if your punctuation is perfect. It doesn't care if your grammar would make your high school English teacher proud. It doesn't care if your thoughts come out in a perfectly organized sequence.

In many cases, it actually works better when you simply explain what you're trying to accomplish in a natural way.

Think about the last time you were explaining a problem to a colleague. You probably didn't walk over to their desk with a perfectly scripted speech. You talked through the situation. You added context. You changed directions halfway through. You remembered something important in the middle and circled back.

That's exactly how most people think.

And AI is surprisingly good at following along.

Your New Favorite Productivity Tool Is Already On Your Computer

The easiest way to do this is to start using voice-to-text.

If you're on Windows, you can press Windows + H and start dictating immediately. If you're on a Mac, there are built-in dictation options available as well. The exact shortcut changes often enough that I now treat Mac keyboard shortcuts like tax legislation—something I know exists but don't pretend to have memorized.

The point isn't which button you press.

The point is removing friction.

Most firm owners can talk significantly faster than they can type. More importantly, most firm owners think faster than they type. By the time you've carefully typed out three sentences, you've already had seven more thoughts.

Voice-to-text lets you capture those thoughts before they disappear.

Instead of spending fifteen minutes trying to build the perfect prompt, you can spend two minutes explaining the problem exactly as it exists in your brain and let the bot help organize it.

Why This Matters for Firm Owners

As firm owners, we're constantly solving problems that don't have simple answers.

How do we improve onboarding?
How do we document this workflow?
How do we train new staff faster?
How do we communicate this change to clients?
How do we market the firm without sounding like every other accounting firm on the planet?

Those aren't questions that usually arrive fully formed. Most of the time they're ideas swirling around in your head.

Voice-to-text allows you to get those ideas out quickly and give the bot something to work with.

I've found that some of the best AI outputs come from prompts that would make absolutely no sense to anyone reading them over my shoulder.

A few minutes of rambling often creates better results than ten minutes of careful typing.

A Few Ground Rules

Before you start narrating your entire workday to your computer, there are a few things worth mentioning.

First, keep an eye on the transcription. Voice recognition has gotten remarkably good, but it's still capable of hearing something completely different than what you intended. If a single word changes the meaning of your prompt, take a second to review it.

Second, save this approach for AI.

A rambling stream of consciousness can work wonders when talking to a bot. It works considerably less well when communicating with your team in Slack, Microsoft Teams, or email.

The bot can handle your unfinished thoughts.

Humans generally prefer punctuation.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, always say please and thank you.

Partly because it's polite.

Partly because some people insist the bots respond better when you're nice to them.

And partly because if they eventually become our robot overlords, I would prefer to be remembered as cooperative.

You can never be too careful.

Just Start Talking

There's a tendency in our profession to believe every productivity improvement requires a new piece of software, a new framework, or a complicated implementation plan.

Sometimes the best solution is much simpler.

Open the bot.

Turn on voice-to-text.

Start talking.

You don't need the perfect prompt. You don't need perfect grammar. You don't need a perfectly organized thought process.

You just need to get your ideas out of your head.

The bot can help with the rest.

And if it talks back, try not to act surprised. That's kind of the whole point. 😏