EY gives businesses a unified AI platform

• EY has launched its own AI platform.
• The company has important strategic partnerships that elevate its AI platform above the crowd.
• The EY.ai platform is designed to help CEOs take confident steps into using generative AI.

When OpenAI unveiled ChatGPT, it probably did not anticipate that the technology would receive as much hype as it gets today. The main success of ChatGPT lies in its being an artificial intelligence (AI) platform that’s easily adopted into a whole range of businesses.

While there are concerns about the security of data and content generated by the AI platform, the reality is that its success has been enough to convince businesses to invest more in it. Recognizing the potential of generative AI, more tech companies have begun experimenting with the technology, each promising unique features.

The reality, though, is that all these AI platforms essentially promise the same thing. They are designed to help organizations improve work productivity and efficiency by automating some tasks and even replacing some roles in the business.

Despite this, some businesses are still concerned about how generative AI could impact them in the long run. Should they worry about using code generated by AI that has not been properly attributed? Or should they be concerned about the regulatory risks they could face by uploading their data onto AI platforms?

For tech companies, these concerns have provided the opportunity to build solutions that help organizations confidently adopt AI. In just the last few months, several tech companies have unveiled their own versions of AI platforms, claiming to offer businesses what they really need from AI.

One of them is EY. This global Big Four accounting organization recently unveiled EY.ai, its version of a unified platform that claims to help organizations confidently adopt AI. EY.ai is the product of a US$1.4 billion investment.

According to EY, the investments have supported the embedding of AI into proprietary EY technologies like EY Fabric, which is used by 60,000 EY clients and more than 1.5 million unique client users. Given the sensitivity of most of EY’s clients’ data, it makes sense to have a platform that enables organizations to better understand how they can use AI.

Is EY.ai just another AI platform?

In a media release, EY says that its solution brings together an AI ecosystem that encompasses a range of business, technological, and academic capabilities in AI. This includes leading-edge alliances with some of the world’s most innovative organizations, such as Dell Technologies, IBM, Microsoft, SAP, ServiceNow, Thomson Reuters, and UiPath, as well as other emerging leaders defining the future of AI.

Understandably, given EY’s strategic alliance with Microsoft, the company has been granted early access to Azure OpenAI capabilities like GPT-3 and GPT-4. This allows EY teams to build and deploy advanced generative AI solutions to enhance its offerings usging Azure OpenAI.

Apart from Microsoft, there are two other alliances EY has that give its AI platform an edge compared to others in the market. They are:

• Dell Technologies – enables clients to prototype and deploy use cases on a validated architecture of a purpose-built hardware by leveraging Dell Generative AI Solutions, a set of Dell products and services simplifying the adoption of full-stack generative AI with LLMs.
• 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.

But what does it really do?

The AI platform puts AI capabilities into the hands of EY teams and 1.5 million users globally by embedding generative AI and leading-edge development tools into EY Fabric. EY Fabric is EY’s global technology backbone that powers 80% of EY’s US$50 billion business, helping client-serving teams to respond faster to global business transformation priorities.

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

Put simply, EY.ai is a tool that helps businesses plan and measure how they can use AI in their organization. Or as EY expressed it, “Facilitated by an ecosystem spanning technology, business and academia, EY.ai builds confidence, helps create exponential value and augments potential.”

“EY.ai reflects the culmination of work and knowledge that the EY organization has been building for a decade. The AI capabilities that EY teams have built and work with clients to date further validate that AI is transformative. 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,” said Nicola Morini-Bianzino, EY global chief technology officer.

EY.ai also follows numerous AI solutions and services that were unveiled earlier this year. This includes the EY Intelligent Payroll Chatbot, which was piloted in March with Microsoft. The program answers complex employee payroll questions, personalizes the employee experience, and is expected to help reduce the burden on employers by more than 50%.

Additionally, the release of 20 new Assurance technology capabilities across the EY organization 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.

Moving forward, EY will be releasing a large language model called EY.ai EYQ as well as a bespoke AI learning and development program for EY people. The company has already run an initial pilot with 4200 EY technology-focused team leaders. The program is expected to elevate the AI skills of EY people including the use of AI responsibly.

Moving forward, EY will be releasing a large language model called EY.ai EYQ, as well as a bespoke AI learning and development program for EY people. The company has already run an initial pilot with 4,200 EY technology-focused team leaders. This program aims to elevate the AI skills of EY personnel, including the use of AI responsibly.

ANNOUNCING: https://t.co/3igxHF24sl – a unifying platform bringing together human capabilities and AI thanks to $1.4bn investment.

More: https://t.co/GOJoYRolGX#BetterWorkingWorld #AI pic.twitter.com/LekobR3xRk

— EY (@EYnews) September 13, 2023

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