December 2025
The landscape for product-based businesses is moving fast. Here’s a quick scan of what’s shaping decisions this month:
- China’s finance teams lean hard into AI, reshaping junior roles and reporting.
- Aussie SMEs ramp up AI plans and cyber risk along with it.
- ANZ: The $20k instant asset write-off is extended, giving SMEs longer to modernise systems.
- AI is already lifting UK firm profits where modern app stacks are in place.
- EU watchdogs probe big cloud providers, with implications for choice and portability.
- Most SMEs say they could live without AI, signalling a gap between hype and real use.
1. “China’s finance teams go all-in on AI and junior roles feel the squeeze”
New research from CPA Australia’s 2025 Business Technology Survey shows AI adoption in Mainland China has jumped fast: 92% of companies report using AI tools (up from 72% last year), and more than one in five say AI is now extensively embedded across their organisation. This is the highest rate among all surveyed markets. At the same time, a third of respondents report reducing hiring for junior accounting and finance roles as automation takes over low-value tasks.
Why it matters for your advisory practice
This is a preview of where the rest of APAC is headed: AI-powered finance, leaner teams, and a much higher bar for data quality.
For product-based SMEs, that means their operational data (inventory, production, landed costs, channel performance) has to be clean, structured and cloud-accessible if they want to tap into AI meaningfully. Platforms like Unleashed become the “source of truth” AI can safely learn from, not a spreadsheet afterthought.
Advisory angle: talk to clients about whether their current systems would actually support AI-driven margin analysis, demand forecasting or cash-flow modelling – and what needs to change.
2. “Australian SMEs catch the AI bug and cyber risk spikes with it”
CPA Australia’s Business Technology Report finds 71% of Australian businesses plan to increase their use of AI in 2026, making them the most AI-bullish of the surveyed markets. At the same time, almost one in five businesses reported a cyber breach in the last year. CPA Australia is warning that AI investments need to be matched with upgraded cyber controls, not bolted onto already-fragile tech stacks.
Why it matters for your advisory practice
Many APAC SMEs are adding AI tools on top of ageing cloud systems and manual processes, which is where misconfigurations and data-leak risks creep in.
For inventory-heavy businesses, that could mean everything from exposed supplier terms to leaked BOMs and pricing.
Advisory angle: bundle AI conversations with a basic “data hygiene and access-control” review. If clients are centralising stock, cost and sales data in platforms like Unleashed and restricting who can see what, you massively reduce both cyber and reporting risk while preparing them for more advanced analytics.
3. “Instant asset write-off extension: one more year for SMEs to modernise their tech stacks”
On 28 November, Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand (CA ANZ) welcomed the Senate’s decision to extend the $20,000 instant asset write-off for the 2025–26 financial year, but renewed calls for the measure to be made permanent, citing ongoing uncertainty for small businesses. The extension lets eligible SMEs immediately deduct the cost of assets under $20,000 instead of depreciating them over time.
Why it matters for your advisory practice
This is a live opening to talk about productive capex: scanners, warehouse hardware and implementation costs that support a shift from spreadsheets into integrated cloud systems (inventory, ecommerce, accounting).
For inventory-holding clients, using the write-off to move to platforms like Unleashed and associated devices like barcode scanners can unlock both tax relief now and operational gains (less admin, fewer stockouts, better cash flow) over the next few years.
Advisory angle: come prepared with a short “capex priority list” for clients: which systems to modernise first, and how that flows through to margin, stock accuracy and bank / investor confidence.
4. “AI adds £1.6bn to UK accounting profits but only for firms that lean in”
A new Xero study with Cebr finds that AI adoption in UK accounting and bookkeeping practices is already boosting profitability and has unlocked an estimated £1.6bn in Gross Value Added for the UK economy. Practices using AI more extensively are seeing better margins and are shifting hiring towards softer, advisory-oriented skills rather than pure number-crunching.
Why it matters for your advisory practice
Your peers who standardise their clients on modern, integrated stacks (cloud accounting, inventory, ecommerce, BI) have the data needed to automate grunt work and focus on higher-fee advisory.
For product-based SMEs, that means deeper conversations about product and channel profitability, not just year-end compliance and those require clean operational data from systems like Unleashed, not siloed spreadsheets.
Advisory angle: use this story to frame AI not as “robots stealing jobs” but as a route to more interesting work for your team and more strategic insight for clients.
5. “EU opens landmark cloud probe into AWS and Azure under the Digital Markets Act”
On 18 November the European Commission launched three market investigations into cloud computing under the Digital Markets Act. Two probes will assess whether Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure should be designated as “gatekeepers”, and a third will examine whether current DMA rules are enough to tackle issues like interoperability barriers, data access limits and bundling in the cloud sector.
Why it matters for your advisory practice
Many of your clients’ core apps like accounting, inventory, ecommerce and BI, ultimately sit on these cloud platforms. The DMA focus on fairness, interoperability and data access is a strong signal that portability and openness will matter more over time.
For SMEs, the practical takeaway is to avoid being locked into one vendor’s vertical stack and to favour modular, API-friendly tools (e.g. Unleashed plus Xero/QuickBooks, Shopify and best-of-breed apps) that can move with them if cloud rules or pricing shift.
Advisory angle: this is a good hook for a “cloud stack check-up” with UK/EU clients are they over-reliant on one mega-vendor, and how portable is their operational and financial data if they need to change?
6. “SMEs say they like AI but most could ‘live without it’ (for now)”
Fresh Xero-commissioned research shows a striking AI paradox across Australia, the UK and the US: daily AI users were twice as likely to see revenue increase, yet more than half of small businesses say their operations wouldn’t be affected if AI tools disappeared tomorrow. Many owners are cautiously optimistic but still using AI lightly, if at all.
At the same time, separate analysis of the European SME tax and accounting software market highlights rapid migration away from Excel and legacy desktop tools toward cloud platforms, driven by e-invoicing mandates and wider digital compliance initiatives.
Why it matters for your advisory practice
There’s a clear “readiness gap”: clients know AI and automation matter, but their underlying systems, especially inventory, costing and channel data, often aren’t robust enough to support meaningful use cases.
For advisory-minded firms, this is the perfect moment to position yourself as the bridge: help clients move from fragmented spreadsheets to integrated platforms like Unleashed + cloud accounting, then layer AI on top for forecasting, margin analysis and scenario planning.
Advisory angle: rather than selling “AI” in the abstract, pitch 2–3 very specific wins that depend on better data foundations (e.g. automated stock reordering, SKU-level profitability, working-capital release from over-stocking) and work backwards from there.
About The Edge
The Edge is a monthly scan of the most useful developments for accountants and consultants working with product-based businesses. Each edition curates a handful of standout stories from around the world and translates them into practical angles you can use in scoping, implementation and ongoing conversations with clients, from inventory and warehousing, to CRM, ecommerce and AI. No fluff, no generic tech hype. Just the shifts that matter for the way your product clients operate day to day.
