Artificial intelligence has moved quickly from a novelty on the job to a common workplace tool. Gallup found that 52% of U.S. employees and 68% of professional services workers were using AI by February 2026. Thomson Reuters similarly found in spring 2026 that 74% of professionals use AI several times a week for work.

This widespread use shouldn’t surprise anyone. For accountants, attorneys, consultants, and other professionals, AI can accelerate research, summarize complex information, and assist with writing and other forms of communication.

But its rapid adoption has a big downside—AI can produce information that sounds authoritative and looks polished while being completely wrong. And when AI generates mistakes, responsibility for those errors belongs to the professional or business relying on the AI output—not companies that develop AI systems.

AI errors have led to lawsuits, court fines, financial consequences and public embarrassment from fabricated citations, nonexistent sources, and inaccurate AI-generated information. These cases raise an increasingly important question: How can professionals benefit from AI without outsourcing the judgment their work requires?

We are two certified public accountants who research tax accounting. In the September 2026 issue of Journal of Accountancy, we examined what happened in Clinco v. Commissioner, a case before the U.S. Tax Court where an attorney submitted a brief to the court with allegedly fake citations.

The Tax Court is a specialized federal court that resolves disputes between taxpayers and the IRS. This case involved a restaurant owner accused of underreporting more than US$2 million in business receipts and claiming unsupported depreciation deductions on rental properties.

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