The Big Four accounting firms are heavily investing in and developing various tools that leverage generative AI to modernize their practice and offerings. Each Big Four firm has committed billions of dollars and partnered with large tech companies to streamline their market offerings. 

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These investments include partnerships with tech giants like Microsoft, Adobe, OpenAI, Amazon Web Services, Google, and NVIDIA to provide cloud and AI-based offerings. Partnerships with technology experts enable firms to create more efficient go-to-market strategies while combining accounting expertise with technology expertise to drive new innovative solutions. 

Innovative new solutions enhance current service offerings and enable firms to expand their portfolio of services to drive new revenue. KPMG has said, “It would co-develop cloud and AI-based products for its employees and its clients—a five-year investment that the firm projects could return as much as $12 billion in revenue.” These technologies will continue to revolutionize how firms streamline current processes and create opportunities for value-adding and growth within their client base.

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Augment Human Capabilities with Generative AI

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Does this significant investment indicate AI could outperform human accountants and move toward complete automation? Not at this stage. Generative AI is being heavily invested in because of the opportunity to enhance efficiency and augment professional judgment through quicker insights, increasing the focus on more strategic and complex aspects of an accountant’s work.

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In connection with Deloitte's recent introduction of DARTbot, an in-house chatbot created for efficient research of complex accounting questions, Dipti Gulati, CEO of Audit & Assurance at Deloitte & Touche LLP, confirms these generative AI tools within an accounting practice aims to support their professionals, stating,

‍"Integrating generative AI into our technology solutions, combined with the experience, critical thinking, and professional judgment of our professionals, will allow us to deliver deeper insights and a differentiated client experience with distinction and trust."¹

^‍Firms integrating this technology are augmenting their teams' capabilities and expanding the scope of data being analyzed efficiently. This will elevate client services, providing a distinguished and trusted experience for clients.

1. Efficiency: Rapidly builds context by analyzing structured data like emails, authoritative guidance, financial statements, contracts, and presentations.
2. Quality: Enhances the quality of client correspondence and document summaries through precise analysis and key term extraction.
3. Scalability: Enables the scalability of audit-related functions by streamlining and automating processes like document summarization.
4. Accuracy: Improves accuracy by proposing client correspondence based on past requests and efficiently handling inquiries related to engagement status and practice management.
5. Data-Driven Decisions: Supports data-driven decision-making by providing insights and recommendations based on structured data analysis.
6. Enhanced Client Services: Enhances client services by offering contextually relevant correspondence, better document summaries, and more efficient responses to client inquiries, ultimately improving overall service quality.

Process, People, and Data: The Key Considerations Adopting Generative AI

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Global Chairman and CEO of EY, Carmen Di Sibio, said, “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…”

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Organizations must identify processes to change, ensuring the generative AI can effectively mimic and automate human-like tasks, streamline workflows, and generate contextually relevant content across various applications. Some steps include developing strategic alignment within the firm, clear objectives, and selecting the proper AI tools related to the current process. The implementation process should also consider a robust communication plan and a comprehensive training program to address stakeholder concerns and facilitate buy-in, creating a supportive environment for AI adoption. 

Adoption is a significant challenge, and it starts with people.

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A comprehensive adoption program allows the organization to communicate objectives clearly and contain key elements to support the stakeholders' journey towards successfully leveraging AI. Many Big 4 have strategized around their people, investing heavily in upskilling their employees to leverage generative AI effectively.
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“Deloitte is also increasing AI fluency, training more than 120,000 professionals as part of the next generation of AI talent via the AI Academy, a Deloitte Technology Academy program, as well as investing more than $2 billion in global technology learning and development initiatives to boost skills in the application of key technology areas, including AI, to key industry and functional issues.”²

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Additionally, “PwC in April announced a $1 billion investment to expand how its US professionals use AI and to train those 75,000 workers to use the technology. That training will cover the basics of generative AI, including how to write queries, the firm said.”² These investments indicate a significant commitment to the changing landscape of how an accounting professional will operate in the future and the necessity of upskilling employees to leverage the full capabilities of these technologies.

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To support your AI initiative, understanding your data and building a strategy for seamless data integration and transformation is critical in implementing and deploying your AI solution. In their ongoing adoption, Deloitte has raised additional concerns and prioritized data security and confidentiality for their clients by implementing robust security measures, encryption protocols, and access controls. Additionally, their chatbot operates within a dedicated, secure, self-contained environment that does not use user input data to train the models. Security and privacy of client data are essential, but accountants also need the ability to rely on the results. Thomas Mackenzie, global chief technology officer for KPMG audit practice, stated, “We need to ensure that the results that are leveraged on an audit are certified, verified, understandable, and can be used to drive audit quality,” he said. “That is why we are taking a very measured approach around adopting AI because we cannot have someone rely—nor can tax or advisory for that matter—rely on results which are malformed due to a misunderstanding or misapplication of AI.”¹ Algorithms and large language models are being trained on specific data sets and understanding these sources is critical to validating the accuracy of the results of the model. This is a vital area because of the results being produced by auditors and accountants relative to their engagements.

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The Big Four accounting firms heavily invest in generative AI to modernize their practice and offerings through strategic partnerships with tech giants and innovative startups. Their goal is not to replace human accountants but to enhance their capabilities by improving efficiency, augmenting professional judgment, and streamlining processes. These investments are coupled with substantial efforts to upskill their employees and provide comprehensive training programs. Successful AI implementation also requires a strategic alignment, clear objectives, and careful selection of AI tools, while data integration, security and privacy are top priorities to protect their clients. The firms are taking a measured approach to AI adoption to certify the accuracy and reliability of results while maintaining quality and trust to deliver greater value, innovation, and trust in the accounting profession. 

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The Big 4 have laid a great roadmap and critical considerations around Generative AI adoption for mid-market firms. Learning from their strategies and referencing them to your firm will help with a more seamless adoption to service your clients more efficiently and effectively. 

Learn how Materia assists in Generative AI for firms like these to save time and upskill staff. Stay in touch.

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