Five years after his retirement, ROB is back at Hein Koning. The world around accounting has changed again, and so has the role he was originally designed to play. Where the first ROB stood for robotic accounting and automation, ROB.AI stands for something broader: a firm that keeps investing in new technology to deliver sharper insight, faster answers, and better advice — with people still firmly at the centre.
And because ROB was developing into the face of AI and innovation at Hein Koning, it made sense to have him evolve with the help of AI:
From automation to augmentation
The first ROB, launched in 2015, was the personification of a then-radical idea: that an accountancy firm could lead with technology and automate large parts of the work clients used to dread. By 2020 that ambition had become business as usual at Hein Koning, and ROB stepped aside.
In 2025 the question shifted. Automation was no longer the differentiator — AI was. Clients wanted to know what their advisor was actually doing with these new tools, and what it meant for the quality of the advice they were getting. ROB came back to make that story concrete and recognisable, but with a clear new framing.
A symbol, never a stand-in
ROB.AI is deliberately positioned as a visual symbol of innovation at Hein Koning, never as someone who performs the work. The copy never anthropomorphises him; he doesn’t file your VAT return, advise on your legal form, or run the payroll. Hein Koning’s specialists do. ROB is the face of the firm’s commitment to keep using the best available technology — including AI — to serve clients better.
This distinction runs through every piece of the campaign. People make the difference; technology supports what they can do.
ROB is now added to almost all internal and external communication of Hein Koning. Always adding a smart, innovative, but at the same time adding a quirky and humanizing flair. He represents the company on merchandise and in sponsor activities.
ROB.AI lives mainly on LinkedIn and Facebook, with supporting roles on the new Odoo 19 website, in advisory documents, and in seasonal communications. Each post combines a single sharp question or statement with a ROB scene that visualises it. The campaign is structured around five themes that together cover what Hein Koning offers and how it works:
- The core promise — up-to-date numbers and solid advice
- Forward-looking advisory
- Comprehensive support through the Odoo platform
- People make the difference
- Continuous innovation
ROB.AI appears across all five, but the tone is always the same: positive, concrete, and from the entrepreneur’s perspective. No fear-mongering, no inventing problems that satisfied clients don’t have, no generic accountancy clichés.
The original ROB became a symbol for the firm. ROB.AI is being built to do the same — for a moment in which the question is no longer whether your accountant uses technology, but how well, and on whose behalf.
Credits
ROB.AI campaign concept, art direction, copy and visual development by André Brocatus for Hein Koning, 2025–ongoing. Image generation produced with Gemini, based on detailed prompts and a fixed character reference. Original ROB (2015–2020) developed by Tij Communicatie and ABDC.
