Streamlining Important Data

AI and automation have been hot topics, both for their transformative potential and also for their capacity to introduce new opportunities by disrupting old models. EY took a hard look at the impact that AI would have on its audit services: What if AI and automation could drastically reduce the number of documents EY smart auditors needed to review so that they could spend more time advising clients?

The EY vision to improve its services through AI and automation has manifested in a multi-year plan, with each year in its road map representing specific and real advancements. Each step and progress must adhere to EY key principles for automation: That they free up resources, improve decision-making, and ultimately complement rather than replace people.

Now that EY had successfully proven the internal service value of AI, it was ready to apply and provide those types of successes as new services to its global clients. The EY approach is human-centered, pragmatic, and outcome focused. Its goal is to help clients achieve tangible progress, and guided by a robust ethics framework, to improve its workers’ and customers’ lives. To EY, AI and intelligent automation are proven tools and capabilities used to advance and improve services in ethical and thoughtful ways.

EY identified ways to give its people time back to work on the most important activities. This exploration culminated in the use of AI capabilities, supported by Microsoft, to automate over 250 processes globally—freeing up an estimated 2,000,000 human hours annually while improving quality and accuracy.