Every week another Big Four firm announces an AI rollout, and every week a few more small-firm owners take it as their cue. And if the tools are safe for the giants, they must be safe for me. They built all of that first, and switched the AI on second, because at their size, doing it the other way around wouldn’t survive the first audit. Here’s what actually reaches a small firm, and how fast: the AI capabilities. Until recently, keeping AI inside that wall required a Big Four budget: private infrastructure, a security team, the works.