About WBR Group
WBR Tax is a specialist tax consultancy within WBR Group. Rather than providing routine compliance services, its team advises private clients, business owners and entrepreneurs on complex transactions, planning and business objectives.
The consultancy works across a varied range of tax areas, often supporting accountants, financial advisers, wealth advisers and fractional finance directors on a project basis. This breadth means its practitioners need to move confidently between different tax disciplines, even when a question sits outside their immediate experience.
For Director Tom Lodge, AI is not a standalone experiment. It is increasingly embedded within how WBR Tax conducts research, develops its people and delivers advice.
“I sometimes refer the Protégé tool as your super search.”
Challenge: navigating complex and varied tax matters
WBR Tax’s project-based model regularly brings the team into complex, specialist or unfamiliar areas of tax. Unlike larger firms with separate corporate tax, VAT, stamp tax and private client departments, its practitioners need to draw knowledge from across the tax landscape.
Before AI, finding the right legislation, guidance, case law and commentary could involve extensive manual searching. As Lodge explains, it often meant “a lot of looking around, a lot of filtering, a lot of reading and then finding, ‘no, this is not what I want.’”
This was particularly challenging for junior practitioners who were still learning where to begin, which terminology to use and how to structure a comprehensive technical note.
Experienced professionals could rely on knowledge built throughout their careers. Those entering advisory work for the first time did not yet have the same shortcuts. This could leave them unsure where to start and reliant on senior colleagues to redirect their research.
Solution: a more direct route into trusted tax research
Tolley+™ with Protégé™ gives WBR Tax’s practitioners a more accessible starting point. Instead of needing to construct the perfect traditional search, they can describe a tax issue naturally and use the response to identify relevant guidance and source materials.
“You can ask a plain English question and get pointed in the right spaces,” says Lodge.
The ability to move from an initial answer into the supporting materials is an important part of the process. Lodge describes this connection as “so powerful”, particularly when someone is encountering a subject for the first time.
This supports the breadth of work undertaken by WBR Tax. When a client raises a question outside Lodge’s immediate specialism, he can use Protégé to build an initial understanding, examine the relevant materials and apply his professional expertise to the conclusion.
It does not replace professional judgement. It gives the team a faster way to find the information needed to exercise that judgement.
“In some cases a 50% reduction in time is spent researching.”
Results: faster research and stronger technical development
For WBR Tax, successful AI adoption is not measured only by how quickly an answer appears. Its impact can also be seen in how technical work is prepared, reviewed and discussed.
Research that previously involved manually searching multiple publications can now begin with a direct question and a structured response. This helps practitioners reach relevant answers, publications, tools and resources more quickly, while retaining access to the underlying sources.
Technical notes that could previously take several days to prepare, followed by a full day of senior review, can now be completed and reviewed within a much shorter timeframe. The quality and structure of the initial work also give senior reviewers a clearer view of the sources behind the conclusion.
This has changed the review process itself.
“The review process is not ‘I read your technical note, I put comments or red mark it.’ It’s a meeting where they get the ability to present to me and we can have a two-way conversation,” Lodge explains.
Instead of receiving written amendments after the work has been completed, junior practitioners can present their reasoning and discuss it directly with senior colleagues. This creates a more immediate and valuable learning experience.
Helping junior practitioners contribute sooner
The impact is particularly clear for team members moving from compliance backgrounds into advisory work.
Protégé provides an initial route into unfamiliar subjects, helping them understand the issue, locate relevant guidance and begin forming a structured technical response. This reduces the uncertainty that can arise when someone is given a complex problem but does not yet know where to begin.
“The fact that they’re able to be a part of the project and get involved straight away is really helpful,” says Lodge.
Junior practitioners are therefore able to move beyond supporting tasks such as drafting emails, completing basic calculations or assembling guidance. They can become involved in the core technical work of a project earlier in their development.
“You’ve got juniors who can be of value far quicker, but then also you have really senior persons who can deliver even more value than they could before.”
Outlook: making AI part of the firm’s strategy and operations
WBR Tax has adopted AI as part of a broader approach to improving productivity, technical quality and consistency. Lodge actively explores how different AI tools can support professional services, while recognising that specialist tax research requires authoritative content and professional verification.
Within that strategy, Protégé has a distinct role. Lodge sees it as a primary or supporting research tool, as well as a controlled environment in which junior and mid-level practitioners can develop their research skills.
“I don’t think there’s any database out there that can compete with Tolley’s existing relationships and its responsibilities in respect of being the tool for collating UK tax law and publications,” he says.
AI is now helping WBR Tax operate across a wider range of technical areas, accelerate the development of its people and create more space for valuable conversations between junior and senior practitioners.
Its experience shows that effective AI adoption is not simply about producing work faster. It is about embedding technology into the firm’s research, review and development processes so that practitioners at every level can contribute more.
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