Consulting services firm EY, today announced the launch of EY.ai, its new artificial intelligence platform. According to the Big Four firm, the new platform aims to help clients adopt AI responsibly. The company said that it has invested $1.4 billion to develop the platform over 18 months.
Through the investment, the company claims it has embedded AI into proprietary technologies like EY Fabric. EY said that this foundational technology platform is used by 60,000 EY clients and more than 1.5 million unique client users.
The company intends to incorporate AI capabilities within EY Fabric, a system that reportedly underpins 80% of EY’s $50 billion business operations. According to a press release, part of the funds also went into securing a series of EY technology acquisitions with supporting cloud and automation technologies.
“AI’s moment is now. Every business is considering how it will be integrated into operations and its impact on the future. However, the adoption of AI is more than a technology challenge,” Carmine Di Sibio, EY Global Chairman and CEO, said in a statement.
In addition to launching EY.ai, the global organization will also be releasing its own large language model (LLM), named EY.ai EYQ. The release follows an initial pilot with 4,200 EY technology-focused team members. To expand the AI skills of its employees, EY said that it will roll out a comprehensive learning program building on the extensive AI, data and analytics learning badge curriculum and credentials introduced in 2018.
The EY Alliance Ecosystem
To further develop its AI ecosystem, EY said it has integrated various business, technical and academic expertise in the field of artificial intelligence. The ecosystem comprises of strategic partnerships with renowned global companies such as Dell Technologies, IBM, Microsoft, SAP, ServiceNow, Thomson Reuters, and UiPath.
Building on its existing partnership with Microsoft, the company has been granted early access to Azure OpenAI capabilities including GPT-3 and GPT-4. EY said this will allow its teams to build and deploy advanced generative AI solutions to enhance its service offerings.
The partnership between EY and Dell Technologies involves a shared investment in AI-driven capabilities, such as Dell Generative AI Solutions. This suite of Dell offerings is designed to streamline the integration of full-stack generative AI with LLMs.
It aims to cater to organizations at various stages of their generative AI exploration. EY asserts that clients can create and implement prototype use cases using a validated infrastructure consisting of purpose-built hardware, software, and embedded security specifically optimized for generative AI applications.
Likewise, EY’s partnership with Thomson Reuters will involve the fusion of knowledge and perspectives spanning tax, legal, global trade, and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) services. It will also expedite the joint development of new AI-powered solutions and services.
EY’s AI Offerings: What to Expect
EY.ai’s introduction is part of a broader initiative by the company to expand its AI offerings, such as the EY Intelligent Payroll Chatbot. Initially tested in March in collaboration with Microsoft, the chatbot addresses intricate payroll queries from employees. It is anticipated to alleviate employers’ responsibilities by over 50%.
In addition, the company recently rolled out 20 fresh technology enhancements within its Assurance domain, among which is the global deployment of artificial intelligence (AI). This AI-driven functionality, trained on both publicly accessible and EY-originated data, is integrated with the EY Assurance technology framework. Its primary purpose is to assist EY Assurance experts in risk assessment.
Additionally, EY Assurance is introducing new AI-powered functionalities encompassing predictive analytics, content search and summarization, and document intelligence, which extends to tasks like financial statement reconciliation.
“The AI capabilities that EY teams have built and work with clients to date further validates that AI is transformative,” Nicola Morini-Bianzino, EY Global Chief Technology Officer, commented. “I am highly confident that a human-centered approach to transformation using AI will empower EY people, enhance the quality of client work and ultimately change our working world for the better.”
EY is not the only professional services network that has invested more than $1 billion into generative AI. In April, PwC announced that it is planning to pour $1 billion into generative AI over the next three years to enhance its U.S. operations.
Likewise, in June, Accenture revealed that it will invest $3 billion over three years to expand its data and AI practice and increase efficiency for its enterprise customers.
Source: mPost
