40% and 40% — these two numbers stopped me cold.
The Thomson Reuters 2026 AI in Professional Services Report this week reports that 40% of firms have received instructions from clients to both use AI on their work AND not use AI on their matters. Same firm. Conflicting instructions. Different clients saying opposite things. Sometimes the same client.
This is what happens when nobody really has the conversation.
The rest of the report tells the same story. Organization-wide AI adoption doubled to 40% (from 22% last year). Two-thirds of corporate clients want their outside firms using AI. Less than one-third know whether they actually are. Only 18% of firms track ROI on AI tools. 40% don't know if ROI is being measured at all.
If your firm uses AI on client work and has not told your clients, you have a communication gap. If your clients want you using AI and have not told you, they have one too. Adoption is moving. Communication is not.
The rest of this brief examines how the conversation should be opened — what specifically to say to clients who are silent, how to structure the disclosure so it lands as competence rather than panic, and three ways the Friction Audit reveals exactly which client conversations to have first…