7 things IKEA can teach your practice about AI (yes, really)

When I started running webinars for accountants, I don’t think I'd be writing a blog about flat-pack furniture. But the more I read about what IKEA's done with AI over the last few years, the more I kept thinking: this is like the exact conversation I have with accountants and bookkeepers every week.

The lessons underneath it are worth understanding. IKEA built a chatbot called Billie to handle customer service, order tracking, "where's my couch" etc. It now resolves close to half of all customer enquiries on its own. That's a lot of call-centre jobs' worth of routine work gone. Here's the bit most people skip past: IKEA didn't lay those people off. They retrained them as interior design consultants and that new service now pulls in over a billion a year, with IKEA aiming to grow it further by 2028. I think there's a lot in there for us. Here's what I took from it. 

1. Let the robot do the easy, repetitive stuff and put your people where they're actually needed

Billie handles the repetitive stuff so the humans can do work that needs a real brain and a real relationship. Sound familiar? That's exactly the trade-off sitting in front of every accounting practice right now. Bank recs, chase-up emails, first-draft BAS reviews - there's no reason a human needs to be weighing themselves down with those anymore. The hours you get back from that should go straight into the advisory conversations that actually help your clients (and your fee charging ability)

2. Whatever the AI can't do - that's your next service line

This one's my favourite, honestly. When IKEA looked at the roughly half of enquiries Billie couldn't handle, they noticed a pattern: people didn't just want product info, they wanted someone to tell them if the sofa would actually work in their lounge room. That gap became a genuine new revenue stream. Same thing's sitting in your client base right now. What do clients keep asking you that no chatbot could ever answer properly? Cashflow strategy. Should I buy or lease? What's normal for my industry? Those questions are your next paid service… the AI is basically pointing at where the demand already is.

3. "We're bringing in AI" isn't a plan if you haven't worked out what it means for your team

Now here's where I'll give IKEA some credit for not just being a shiny case study. Because in 2026, they also announced around 1,650 job cuts. Which is interesting for a company that's held up as a leader for "reskill, don't replace" still made a big round of cuts. The difference, from I can find online, is that those cuts hit head-office and corporate roles, not the frontline who'd been retrained. So the lesson isn't "AI means no one loses their job, ever" it's that if you're bringing AI into your practice, you actually need an answer for what happens to your people. "We'll sort it out as we go" isn't good enough. Be transparent and have a plan. Eg Sarah moves off data entry and into client onboarding and advisory prep" is a much better message.

4. Pick one process. Don't try to overhaul the whole practice in one go

IKEA started with one function - customer service - and one bot and only expanded once they could prove it worked. I see practices try to "do AI" everywhere at once and it usually just gets too hard quickly. Pick one thing. Monthly bank rec reviews or BAS drafts etc, whatever's eating the most time. Build the workflow, measure what you got back, then move to the next thing.

5. Use the data you've already got to look forward, not just to report on the past

IKEA uses AI to predict what's going to sell where, based on sales history, weather, even social trends. It's not really about speed, it's about squeezing more insight out of information they already had sitting there. You're sitting on years of client data. There's a lot in there. Which clients are heading for a cashflow issues next quarter? Which industries are softening? Where are payroll costs are quietly creeping? That's the shift from "here's what happened last month" to "here's what's coming and here's what to do about it."

6. AI buys you time to build trust BUT it doesn't replace it

IKEA's got a tool where you can scan your room and see the furniture sitting in it before you buy. It doesn't replace walking into the store and talking to someone - it just clears away the friction that was stopping people getting there in the first place. That's exactly what AI-generated reports, automated reminders and smoother onboarding should be doing for you. Not replacing the relationship - just clearing the admin out of the way so you've actually got time for the conversations that keep a client with you for a decade.

7. Invest in your team's AI skills before you're under pressure to, not after

IKEA trained its people up while business was strong, not once things got tight. There's a lesson in the timing there. Get your team comfortable with these tools now, while you've got the breathing room to do it properly - not once you're already losing clients to someone more tech-forward than you.

IKEA's story isn't the amazing fairy tale and I don't think it's meant to be feel as one. What it is though is a real example of a business we all know making deliberate calls about AI - with real upside, real limits and a reminder that no amount of AI makes you immune to a tough economy. But the idea of it holds up: practices that use AI to lift their people up, not just to cut headcount, are the ones still around in five years+. You don't need to overhaul everything this month. Pick one workflow. Reskill one part of one role. Build one new advisory offer out of the questions your clients keep asking that AI never could.

That's what future-proofing actually looks like.