We went to ICAI's AI summit and talked to every CA who would listen.

In February the idea got its first outing at a national AI summit. A week before this one, at the AIC NSUT launch, real users watched the product work. Chartered accountants were the harder test. If CAs won't trust the entries Zoffer drafts, nothing else matters, so we went where a few thousand of them would be under one roof.

The most CAs we have ever seen in one building

On 26 and 27 June 2026, ICAI's AI Innovation Summit took over Bharat Mandapam in New Delhi. The theme was "Transforming Accounting, Audit, Tax, and Governance", and according to Careers360's report, more than 4,000 delegates turned up, along with 50+ speakers and 50 AI innovation showcases.

For a bookkeeping startup this is a slightly surreal crowd. Every second person could spot a GST mismatch from across the hall, and "reconciliation" was a word people said with feeling. We have never been so politely outnumbered.

What ICAI announced

Union Minister for Culture and Tourism Gajendra Singh Shekhawat inaugurated the summit, with ICAI President CA Prasanna Kumar D and Vice-President CA Mangesh P. Kinare on stage. A few things came out of the two days that matter if you work anywhere near a CA:

• ICAI signed an MoU with Sarvam AI, covering training, research, workshops and AI-based learning material for members.
• It launched AICA Level 3, an advanced AI certification for members who have finished Level 2, and released a publication called AI Essentials for Chartered Accountants.
• ICAI said it has already trained more than 50,000 members in AI and built over 150 GPT-based tools for professional practice.

That last number made us smile. The profession we sell to is already building its own AI tools, and plenty of them.

The minister also said chartered accountants could help ICAI become an "Institute of Global Trust" by developing AI assurance standards. Sessions through the two days covered generative AI, digital finance, data analytics, cybersecurity, ESG, blockchain, automation, and the future of financial reporting and assurance.

What we were doing there

The same as in February: talking. To CAs who run their own practice, to CAs inside companies, to students, to other founders at the showcases, and to anyone else with a lanyard and five spare minutes.

Our part of the conversation was usually the same. A client forwards a bill on WhatsApp. Zoffer reads it, drafts the accounting entry and flags anything that doesn't add up. Then a person, often the CA, approves it on the dashboard before it goes into Zoho Books. Nothing posts on its own.

At an accounting conference, that last step does a lot of work. A room that is thinking about AI assurance standards does not want an AI that writes to the books unsupervised. It wants the AI to do the typing and the professional to keep the judgement, which is how we built Zoffer in the first place.

What we brought home

A phone full of new contacts and a strong suspicion that the next wave of AI adoption in Indian accounting will be led by CAs themselves, not sold to them. That suits us. We would much rather be the tool a CA picks than the tool a CA has to be talked into.

This was a tougher test than our kiosk at AIC NSUT, and the idea came out of it sharper. The approval step, where a person signs off before anything reaches the books, is what makes AI bookkeeping something a CA can put their name to. Same venue as February, too. At this point we know where the good chai is.

That left a bigger question. Once a small business has clean books, what else can it do with them? The answer turned up on an RBI slide.

Thanks to ICAI for putting on two very full days.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

• AI Innovation Summit (AIS 2026), The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India.
• ICAI launches AI Innovation Summit 2026, signs agreement with Sarvam AI, Careers360, June 2026.