Thomson Reuters has recently acquired Materia, a US-based agentic AI platform that specializes in tax, audit, and accounting. This move comes at a time when interest in AI agents is growing in the legal sector, which is also a key area for Thomson Reuters. While the company did not directly mention lawyers, it is clear that the legal sector is a focus for Thomson Reuters. Materia was founded in 2022 and has primarily focused on tax, audit, and accounting use cases. Their agentic AI assistant automates and enhances research and workflows, helping accountants improve efficiency, effectiveness, and the value they provide to their clients. While there is no mention of legal applications, it is not a stretch to assume that Thomson Reuters may apply the learnings from Materia to the legal sector in the future.
David Wong, Chief Product Officer at Thomson Reuters, stated that once fully integrated, Materia will transform work and unify the customer experience across their tax, audit, and accounting portfolio. He also expressed excitement about the potential of combining Materia with Thomson Reuters’ content, know-how, and solutions. Kevin Merlini, CEO of Materia, added that their vision is to eliminate low-value, tedious tasks and increase quality, freeing up accounting teams to focus on higher value advisory work for their clients.
Thomson Reuters Ventures was an early investor in Materia, which is the first comprehensive generative AI platform built specifically for public accounting firms. The platform is built on a proprietary library of authoritative accounting content, integrated with firm knowledge and key industry software. It offers a suite of pre-built capabilities to improve efficiency and quality for all levels of accounting staff across various workflows while prioritizing security and accuracy.
While this acquisition is currently focused on audit and tax, it is a promising step towards the use of AI agents in the legal sector. Thomson Reuters may soon announce similar advancements in legal AI agents, so it is important to keep an eye on future developments.
