EY announces launch of artificial intelligence platform EY.ai following US$1.4b investment

The global EY organization announces the launch of EY.ai, a unifying platform that brings together human capabilities and artificial intelligence (AI) to help clients transform their businesses through confident and responsible adoption of AI. EY.ai leverages leading-edge EY technology platforms and AI capabilities, with deep experience in strategy, transactions, transformation, risk, assurance and tax, all augmented by a robust AI ecosystem.

EY investments of US$1.4b have provided the foundation for the EY.ai platform. These investments have supported the embedding of AI into proprietary EY technologies like EY Fabric, used by 60,000 EY clients and more than 1.5 million unique client users, as well as helping secure a series of EY technology acquisitions with supporting cloud and automation technologies.

“Empowered by a significant number of data and AI professionals, EY.ai is a collaborative endeavour poised to unlock the full spectrum of knowledge and insights that EY teams can provide to companies aiming to revolutionize their operations with AI. The EY alliance ecosystem plays a pivotal role in linking clients with the most advanced technology, infrastructure, and proficiency available today”, says Bogdan Ion, Country Managing Partner EY Romania & Moldova and Chief Operating Officer for EY South-East & Central Europe and Central Asia (CESA).

Placing people at the center of AI

Following an initial pilot with 4,200 EY technology-focused team members, the global organization will be releasing a secure, large language model called EY.ai EYQ.

The EY comprehensive learning program elevates and expands the AI skills of EY people. It builds on the extensive AI, data and analytics learning badge curriculum and credentials introduced in 2018, with over 100,000 credentials awarded to date, as well as the EY Tech MBA launched in 2020.

Convening an AI ecosystem

EY.ai brings together an AI ecosystem encompassing a range of business, technological and academic capabilities in AI. This includes leading-edge alliances with some of the world’s most innovative organizations, including Dell Technologies, IBM, Microsoft, SAP, ServiceNow, Thomson Reuters and UiPath – as well as other emerging leaders that are defining the future of AI.

Building on the existing strategic alliance, Microsoft has provided the EY organization early access to Azure OpenAI capabilities, such as GPT-3 and GPT-4. With support from Microsoft and leveraging Azure OpenAI Services, EY teams are building and deploying advanced Generative AI solutions to enhance EY service offerings.

The EY-Dell Technologies alliance invests jointly in AI-focused capabilities, including Dell Generative AI Solutions, a set of Dell products and services simplifying the adoption of full-stack generative AI with LLMs, meeting organizations wherever they are in their generative AI journey; clients can prototype and deploy use cases on a validated architecture of purpose-built hardware, software, and embedded security optimized for generative AI.

With Thomson Reuters, EY is expanding and will serve as a transformative force by combining content and insights across tax, law, global trade, and environmental, social and governance (ESG) services, and accelerating the co-development of new, AI-driven solutions and services.

Anchored by AI-powered solutions and services

EY.ai will be underpinned by the EY.ai Confidence Index which leverages industry-leading practices for risk, governance and data management to deliver comprehensive AI evaluation and monitoring. The Index will be complemented by the EY.ai Maturity Model which systematically reviews where an enterprise stands compared to market and industry peers, and the EY.ai Value Accelerator, which helps to prioritize initiatives and solutions for the greatest strategic impact and growth.

EY.ai will also put AI capabilities into the hands of EY teams and 1.5m users globally by embedding generative AI and leading-edge development tools into EY Fabric, the organization’s award-winning global technology backbone that powers 80% of the US$50b EY business. This will help client serving teams to respond faster to global business transformation priorities.

EY.ai also follows numerous AI solutions and services, including:

♦    EY Intelligent Payroll Chatbot, piloted in March with Microsoft, answers complex employee payroll questions, personalizes the employee experience and expects to help reduce the burden on employers by more than 50%.
♦    The recent release of 20 new Assurance technology capabilities across the EY organization includes globally scaled AI. This AI enabled capability – leveraging publicly available and EY generated data – is directly integrated with the EY Assurance technology platform to support EY Assurance professionals in assessing risk. EY Assurance is also introducing new AI enabled capabilities in predictive analytics; content search and summarization; and document intelligence, including financial statement tie-out procedures.

The local team in the AI Centre of Excellence has international experience and helps clients with digital transformation projects that include GenAI.

AI credentials and research

EY and the University of Southern California’s School of Advanced Computing are in active discussions regarding a joint-research opportunity. This follows a US$1b Frontier of Computing initiative launched by the university, with a focus on advancing AI technology guided by ethics and responsibility.