Inside the process: how EY navigated its own AI-driven transformation

Enterprises must initiate change from within to navigate an AI-driven future and successfully transform their own organizations, industries and society as a whole. According to a recent EY CEO Outlook Pulse survey, an overwhelming majority of CEOs, approximately 99%, are planning to invest in generative AI (GenAI). These business leaders are not only acknowledging the transformative potential of AI but are also beginning to take proactive steps in response to the anticipated disruptions to their business models.

EY responded to the AI disruption swiftly and accordingly, allocating an initial US$1.4 billion investment in an extensive transformation program with humans at the center setting an ambitious vision to become the leading AI-powered professional services organization in the world. As a complex and globally decentralized organization, the extensive scope of self-disruption — spanning from macro-level strategies to micro-level operations — inherently presented substantial challenges, hurdles and risks.

In addressing those obstacles, the organization developed transformative solutions and learned valuable lessons. These learnings now form the basis of a series of knowledge-based insights, translating EY’s transformation experience into tangible action plans for other enterprises exploring AI transformation.

EY’s transformation into an AI-centric organization began well before the ChatGPT era with strategic acquisitions, attracting new talent, and a shift to cloud and consolidated data systems. This positioned EY teams to readily adapt to rapidly evolving technologies, market dynamics, complex global regulatory environments and GenAI disruption.

“For enterprises to effectively leverage AI today, they first need to determine specific applications where the technology will best help them, how AI can be integrated into existing infrastructures, and how AI will impact their organization’s information security and data privacy policies,” says Raj Sharma, EY Global Managing Partner – Growth and Innovation. “By acting as our own ‘Client Zero’ and testing AI deployments internally, EY is determining answers to these questions now — so that we can guide our clients based on real experience and practical use cases of this technology.”

Facing the rapid market evolution and the arrival of groundbreaking technologies like ChatGPT, EY grappled with the dual pressures of market expectations and leadership directives. The challenge was not to succumb to a reactionary stance but to assess and refine the AI strategy thoughtfully, ensuring that every step taken was in service of building lasting confidence in AI and empowering responsible transformation.

Amidst the drive to create exponential value, EY teams encountered proof of concept (POC) fatigue, as scattered AI initiatives throughout the global organization threatened to dilute focus and squander resources. The challenge lay in harmonizing these efforts, aligning them with business goals to optimize performance, enrich experiences, and unlock sustainable growth, while positioning humans firmly at the center of the work.

The ambition to augment people potential brought EY face-to-face with the imperative for comprehensive upskilling and change management. The transformation team recognized the need to bridge skill and knowledge gaps, particularly in integrating large language models (LLMs) into daily workflows, to shape a future where the EY workforce could collaborate seamlessly with AI.

Compounding these challenges, the regulatory landscape underwent significant global shifts, demanding agile adaptation of risk management processes to the fast pace of AI innovation. A reluctance to evolve these processes could stifle innovation or, conversely, lead to inadequate risk controls, potentially undermining the firm’s competitive edge and long-term strategic objectives.

EY set ambitious goals to drive AI transformation across three key areas:

• Enhancing service offerings with AI-enabled solutions for growth and efficiency
• Redefining internal work, functions and technology for optimal operations in the AI era
• Shaping public policy, ethics and social agendas to promote the responsible use of AI globally

These objectives were designed to deliver long-term value and growth while addressing the comprehensive needs of clients, internal capabilities and societal impact.

To meet these goals – considering the challenges to support all dimensions of the AI journey – the team focused on six facets through which they could navigate the complexities of AI transformation with confidence and precision.

“From our own process, EY has uncovered challenges and learned lessons across six key areas for AI: strategy, people, technology, governance, clients and society,” explains Beatriz Sanz Sáiz, EY Global AI Sector Leader. The functional transformation strategically mapped AI use cases against business goals and our entire value chain, reimagining workflows and operations around AI. This approach mitigated the risk of launching piecemeal AI initiatives that might fail to deliver anticipated value, or potentially waste resources on low-impact projects that could result in stalled or abandoned efforts.

In the realm of technology and data, EY centralized AI to streamline firm-wide technology consumption, foster the integration of innovative solutions, and encourage responsible exploration. Developers were empowered with advanced tools and platforms to accelerate the AI development lifecycle, while data and systems integration facilitated architectural harmony and robust data governance in alignment with the EY responsible AI framework. The teams furthered this agenda by collaborating with strategic technology alliances to help position the global organization at the forefront of the AI revolution.

With a focus on augmenting people, EY adopted a human-centered, transparent approach to transformation that fosters AI literacy, drives consistent integration into daily workflows, and addresses employee reservations toward new technologies and tools. Internally, EY embraced this philosophy to prepare its workforce for an AI-driven future, closing skills gaps through targeted upskilling and efficient change management.

“We have an opportunity to reshape the industry from a technology perspective and with the domain knowledge we have within EY,” says Pablo Cebro, EY Global Technology Platforms Lead.

The commitment to responsible AI reflects a dedication to building confidence in AI, aligning technology solutions, enterprise processes, and AI infrastructure with core values of ethical governance and risk mitigation. As responsible AI is critical to transformation, EY established firm-wide AI definitions to ensure consistency and clarity throughout all business functions. Risk management processes were designed to evolve alongside the pace of AI innovation, striking a balance between speed and emerging risks. Additionally, budget prioritization was organized to coincide with AI governance to promote effective, responsible AI deployment.

“A Responsible AI framework is critical to our AI journey and is designed to guide the ethical development, deployment and governance of AI technologies within the firm,” notes Alexei Ivanov, EY Global Risk Management – Transformation and Innovation Leader. “Reflecting on our commitment to ethical leadership and readiness, our primary AI ethos is making sure AI is ethical and doing the right thing for the right purpose.”

Focusing on service disruption, EY is actively redefining its services and solutions offered to clients.  Centered on elevating the client experience, EY is embracing alternative commercial models to reflect the true value delivered. Client labs have been established to co-invest with clients to build capabilities and establish market leadership, consistently aligning services and solutions with the forefront of industry needs.

“Our approach to transformation isn’t just a roadmap for our organization’s evolution, but an activator for industry-wide change, empowering clients worldwide with the lessons from our 400,000 strong workforce’s AI journey,” says Hanne Jesca Bax, EY Global Vice Chair – Markets.

Finally, the commitment to “AI for good” is central to the transformation strategy, emphasizing a focus on ethical and responsible use of AI. The profound impact of AI necessitates a persistent dedication to preserving public confidence through well-defined safeguards, policies and responsible development. EY transformation efforts demonstrate that responsible, practical and strategic AI applications can lead to a more equitable and sustainable future.

Informed by the Client Zero experience, the EY organization launched EY.ai, a unifying platform that combines EY’s vast experience with EY technology platforms and leading-edge capabilities. In this holistic ecosystem, seamlessly connected AI capabilities are leveraged to help organizations realize their own AI-enabled transformation. EY formalized the methodology used in the organization-wide transformation process, creating solutions that can help clients take the next right step; these include the EY.ai Maturity Model, EY.ai Value Accelerator, the Responsible AI framework and EY.ai Confidence Index, and the EY.ai Academy for Industries. Stress-tested within the EY organization’s own working world, these solutions were designed to:

• Close the AI maturity gap between current state and ambition
• Identify quantified value creation potential from the deployment of AI capabilities across the value chain
• Verify and continuously monitor the full AI model lifecycle across the EY principles of Responsible AI
• Deliver industry-tailored AI training to upskill the workforce, drive adoption and build confidence in AI

“Thanks to our internal testing and case studies, we are able to provide our clients with key solutions across each of our six key areas of transformation, helping them take a more strategic, collaborative and ethical approach to AI integration,” says Sanz Sáiz. “This deliberate approach to AI-powered transformation is helping our clients establish future innovation.”

Honing the focus on strategic AI investments, prioritizing long-term value and measurable growth, EY teams narrowed over 800 AI use cases down to 20 key opportunities, accelerating decision-making to just 8-10 weeks.

Reducing inefficiencies even more dramatically, EY teams launched its own ecosystem of GenAI capabilities, EY.ai EYQ, in just four weeks from conception to delivery. Some of the key capabilities of EYQ include versatile agents and conversational assistants built on EY knowledge, collaborative workspaces, integrated prompt management, and the incubation of experimental AI projects. The GenAI ecosystem is powered by EY Fabric, a global, foundational technology platform that centralizes reusable technology, data, and AI assets to empower the EY workforce with advanced AI tools. More than 1,000 GenAI POCs, several of which are agentic AI, are currently in development using EYQ, and over 850 Azure OpenAI instances have been supported.

Putting humans at the center of the transformation has manifested in remarkable achievements across the organization, with 83% of the EY workforce completing foundational AI learning. More than 115,000 EY Badges in AI have been either completed or initiated, along with more than 300 EY degrees awarded in partnership with Hult International Business School (including the EY Tech MBA, EY Masters in Sustainability and EY Masters in Business Analytics), reflecting a deep investment in upskilling. This focus on education has translated into 2 million learning hours, significantly accelerating AI integration into daily operations. The success of this approach is further evidenced by the high user adoption rate of EY.ai EYQ, which stands at over 81%, with more than 85 million prompts processed in just nine months. Additionally, the EY global developer community, now equipped with AI tools, has contributed over 4.1 million lines of code in a little over a year, showcasing a shift toward more agile and innovative development practices.

AI adoption within the EY organization: