EY has emerged as one of the 14 founding members of the Microsoft-led Frontier Firm AI Initiative, a collaboration with Harvard University. Frontier Firms are enterprises that leverage AI to redesign work, decision-making, and operating models to create value at scale. As a Client Zero for many of Microsoft’s innovative solutions, EY has moved beyond experimentation to build a hybrid model where AI amplifies human ingenuity and drives enterprise-scale value creation.
The transformation began with foundational work in cloud and data. EY built EY Fabric on Microsoft Azure, a unified, cloud-based platform that serves as the global backbone for data. The firm also focused on making data accessible, governed, and trusted, exemplified by EY Helix, which unified audit data supply chains with Microsoft Fabric and infused analytics across services.
As generative AI use exploded, EY rapidly deployed Azure OpenAI to build EY.ai EYQ, a private, secure, enterprise GenAI ecosystem for 300,000 employees. The firm integrated AI into daily work by rolling out Microsoft 365 Copilot and enabling teams to build their own agents in Copilot Building and Microsoft Copilot Studio. This culminated in a bespoke agentic AI platform built on Microsoft Azure, embedded into core platforms, workflows, and decision-making processes.
The results have been transformative. Running agents across various functions drove a 15% productivity boost globally. Over 16,000 EY developers using Microsoft GitHub Copilot created 18 million lines of code, while PowerPost automated finance workflows, reducing operational costs by 37%. Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales, deployed to 100,000 users, institutionalized sales rigor globally. EY Canvas enhanced over 160,000 audit engagements, processing 1.4 trillion lines of journal entry data annually.