THE AI-FIRST FIRM · ISSUE 7 · OCT 23, 2026 · ~8 MIN READ
If you use AI, should you charge less?
Does the AI tool you’re using show up where you already work, with your action items already drafted? I built mine on my phone over a weekend, and you can do the same with the notetaker you already have.
TLDR
→ Ask your AI to act on your meeting action items, not just list them
→ Get Claude to interview you for your client rules and your stop list
→ If you sell outcomes, not hours, AI shouldn't lower your price
→ Last call for Calgary, and AI use in Canadian firms is up 8x
You're reading this on the web. The AI-First Firm goes out free every other Friday, and you can have the next one in your inbox.
🔧 Behind the Build: CEO Pilot moved into my browser
You got the short version on LinkedIn this week (I built something on my phone over the weekend, found out it was not nearly as useful by Monday). What I didn't get into there is why, because it's the same reason most AI tools at a firm never get used.
I built “CEO Pilot” to pull the context from every app I work in, my email, Slack, Teams, Notion Claude memory and my meeting notes, into 1 place. The catch is that it became 1 more place to keep up with. Every time, I'd have to go to CEO Pilot and then back to where I actually handle my email.
So I turned it into a Chrome extension and used Claude in Chrome to put its buttons in the right spots on my screen, right next to the email I'm already reading. Now it's contextually aware, it keeps itself up to date and it pulls from all my systems. Here’s a bit more about what it does…
Turns my meeting action items into the actions themselves. It connects to my note-taking tool, so instead of a list I get the Slack reply, the email or the prep for the next call, already drafted and already knowing what was said.
Drafts every reply in my voice, plus 2 other takes (again, contextually aware of everything)
Re-reads the whole thread before it shows me a draft. It once offered my banker new times for a call he'd already booked that morning, so now it checks first.
A mic on every email. I say what the reply should say and it writes it. Think wispr flow but, more context.
10 minutes before a meeting it shows me who's in it, what's still owed and what I need to walk out with (right where I am already)
Clears anything I already handled somewhere else, about once a minute.
Drafts a nudge when someone goes quiet on something they owe me.
Much more. And nothing goes to anyone without my tap (human in the loop here).
Context truly is king here, I’ve said that time and time again. Your team already has the apps open all day. That's where AI needs to show up, not in another tab they have to remember.
By the way, it named itself, I don’t like it.
CEO Pilot sits right inside the email, with its own button in the toolbar.
Don't make people go to the AI. Put the AI where they already work.
What to do with it
Most of us use a notetaker by now, and it hands you a list of action items. Ask Claude (or whatever you use) to act on them for you, the follow-up email, the Slack reply, the prep for the next call, drafted and ready for you to read and send. Then.. make it a Chrome extension, and go down a rabbit hole with me :)
📹 THE LIST EVERY AI-FIRST FIRM NEEDS (IT'S NOT A TOOL LIST)
On November 9–10, Financial Cents is running WorkflowCon 2026, a free virtual conference for small and growing firms (yes, free). This year's theme is Focus is the New Flex: the most impressive thing about a firm is what it chose to be great at and what it left alone.
You’ve got Jan Haugo building a client dashboard in Claude live, Dawn Brolin sharing her AI implementation playbook, Tanya Hilts covering what you're agreeing to before AI touches client data, and Ethan Kross closing Day 1.
Honestly it still blows my mind that this is free. You get top tier speakers and 2 days of stuff you can actually build with, and it costs you nothing but the time… and it’s time well invested (not spent). Needless to say, my whole team will definitely be there.
📋 Worth Taking #007: get Claude to interview you
Oftentimes we don't have a formalized process or document that holds our client rules. And we overanalyze how long it'll take to create it as you wonder what to include. Well, here’s a pro tip: get Claude to interview you for it.
You don't need to know the questions, it does. Pick 1 client you know cold, open the project you set up for #006 and paste this.
The same move works on a bigger question. Financial Cents has a great idea called the not-doing list, deciding what your firm is great at and what it should stop doing. Don't fill it out yourself, get Claude to interview you through it.
Both prompts are in the email version. Subscribe and the next one lands in your inbox.
AI makes it cheap to keep everything, which is exactly why the stop list matters now. If you want 2 full days on this question, it's the theme of WorkflowCon (November 9th and 10th).
As always, check that you're on a plan that's right for client data before you use anything real.
💬 Reader Question: if you use AI, shouldn't you charge less?
"How do you handle a prospect who says, if you use AI, shouldn't your price be much lower?"
It depends on how you're pricing and what you're selling, which I've said publicly more than once. If you're selling hours, then yes, of course your price should be lower. If you're selling outcomes, you shouldn't be penalized for getting there faster because you use AI.
Stop quoting hours in your proposals. If the price is built on hours, the question is fair.
Have 1 line ready. Something like, "You're paying for the result and for me being accountable for it, AI is why you'll get it faster."
Put the time it saves into what they get, more check-ins, a quicker close, a heads-up before a problem, rather than off the price.
▶️ Now Playing
Yesterday's video was about putting 50 accountants in a room and making them use AI. It's a look inside our Claude 101 workshop in Toronto, laptops open the whole day, building with Claude instead of just hearing about it.
If you've ever left a webinar or a conference fired up and implemented nothing by the next week, take a look at this behind the scenes and steal the 3 things we built that day, the context that tells Claude who your firm is, a month-end skill, and a visual report your clients will actually want to see.
📰 In Other News
Last call for Calgary. Claude 101 for Accountants is at Platform Calgary on Thursday, November 12th, 10 to 2:30, laptops open the whole day. If you've been meaning to (or there's someone on your team who should go instead of you), register now.
AI use inside Canadian accounting organizations went from 5% in 2023 to 43% this year, per CPA Canada's survey of 5,000 CPAs. Only 45% have a formal AI policy and 34% have any training. If your team's using it with no policy yet, you're in the majority, and that's not a compliment.
Intuit just made it official, Intuit Intelligence is rolling out outside the US, Canada included, with firm playbooks and cross-client insights for accountants. Intuit says early adopters save 13 hours a month. That's their number, not mine, so I'd try it on 1 client before I believed it.
💬 Question For You
Where does your AI live right now, in its own tab or inside the tools you already use all day? Hit reply and tell me, I read every one.
See you in two weeks.
Mike
PS. I've started buying my GO train tickets through Meta's Muse agent, which is either the future or the laziest thing I've ever done (probably both).
Mike Libbey is CEO of YBL, a fully virtual Canadian accounting and VCFO firm. On YouTube (@MikeLibbey) he shows the tools he has built and what running a firm actually takes, and he posts every weekday on LinkedIn. He is quietly building TaxPilot for Canadian tax firms on the side. Reply to any issue, he reads them all.