Accounting firms Deloitte, EY, KPMG and PwC reveal how AI will change professional services
Deloitte, EY, KPMG and PwC say some jobs will go because of artificial intelligence but others will be created as the industry competes to be top dog in AI.
Inside the so-called big four, an artificial intelligence race is under way.
The major accounting firms are demanding more from staff. They also want to deliver faster turnarounds and better results for clients in one of the biggest disruptions to the industry in decades.
Deloitte, EY, KPMG and PwC have gone all in on generative AI, investing billions of dollars which has resulted in the rollout of custom-built virtual assistants similar to ChatGPT.
Many have been developed from language models sourced from Microsoft and OpenAI along with in-house creations, allowing staff to format data, write emails, summarise documents and write code.
Regarded as a revolution, firms expect generative AI to improve efficiency and say productivity could increase by 20 per cent. That allows for faster turnarounds and the ability to take on more work, allowing staff to spend more time on creativity aspects.
While firms say the technology won’t be used to specifically lay off workers, it is seen as inevitable that some jobs will be made redundant while creating new roles. But as firms upskill their large workforces, knowledge in AI will be a prerequisite for those joining and in some cases could even result in staff being paid more.
Deloitte Australia chief transformation officer Dennis Krallis told The Weekend Australian that the sector was trying to find the right balance between mitigating the risks of the technology and unlocking and empowering the ideas from improving client service quality.
“That liberation of hours will allow staff to play up the value chain by spending more time on what their skills set is really about and getting the best use of that to drive greater value to clients,” he said.
“Gen AI is not going to be a differentiator. Initially, it is the ticket to play but everyone has access to it, so it is more about efficiency at this point.”
The use of in-house ChatGPT was seen by some as a necessity to mitigate the risk of employees potentially using third-party platforms and risking feeding third-party material into those models.
Deloitte has PairD, KPMG has a private version of ChatGPT sourced from Microsoft and OpenAI called KymChat, EY has EYQ and PwC has ChatPwC available to staff.
KPMG chief digital officer John Munnelly said KymChat was needed to ensure data was kept on Australian shores. He said firms were in an “arms race” rolling out AI products to staff and clients.
“The arms race will end this year because everybody will have a private ChatGPT option. Any advantage by going early will be short lived as we will be no different to our competition,” he said.
Mr Munnelly said that the advantage would, however, come from digitalising the knowledge held within KPMG.
“The genuine competitive advantage comes from specialised AI,” he said. “It’s looking at data that only you have that no one else has, and that is where you get a significant competitive advantage because we’re essentially then digitising our knowledge in the business.”
In the coming weeks KPMG will roll out KymTax, which will digest its tax knowledge, data, legislation, and use that to do first drafts of documentation. EY has recently introduced EY Skills Foundry and Deloitte bring its preferred large language model to all Australian staff in the coming quarter following a trial of several methods.
EY Australia AI leader and partner Lisa Bouari said her team had moved on from a ChatGPT concept to using six autogen agents which work together to solve a common problem.
“We have an end-to-end offering across our entire firm, so AI is more than just putting a tool in place, but it has the deep intellectual property and consulting knowledge and know-how across a broad range of topics,” she said.
A fear many workers have is that AI puts them out of work, and it is one the professional services firms are keen to downplay for now. At Deloitte, Mr Krallis said that AI would change the skills required for individual jobs, while firms such as KPMG and PwC explored new roles.
“We’ll see a greater demand for engineering and data skills in the future – the ability to prompt and have the right level of curiosity to ask the large language models effective questions,” Mr Krallis said.
KPMG has estimated AI could automate 40 per cent of tasks in some areas and a 20 per cent improvement in efficiency on average.
“It won’t take all the jobs, but it will take some,” Mr Munnelly said. “It will supplement you in tasks and will also lead to creating new roles.”
KPMG has looked at several new roles required from AI including an AI librarian or AI custodian with the knowledge base to ensure models were up to date. It has also hired a KymTax custodian to ensure it stays up to date with tax legislation.
Ms Bouari agreed that the job description for many roles would change as a result of AI as there would be less focus on boring tasks and more on higher-outcomes-focused tasks.
“We will likely see more roles created because of AI. As society grows and technology evolves, we actually find that it creates more jobs. And then the ones that we don’t need, you know, as much focus on anymore, they evolve into something new,” she said.
Those working at the major firms and also currently in university and who wanted a career in professional services would need knowledge and experience in AI or risk missing out on opportunities. Mr Munnelly said there was evidence that there could even be different pay grades for those who know AI and those who do not.
“We could see that people who can use AI get paid 20 per cent more than people who can’t,” he said.
PwC Australian Data & AI partner Jahanzeb Azim said firms would eventually expect that all workers have experience working with AI.
“It’s almost going to be understood or expected rather that you have some sort of experience in working with AI. Gen AI is a technology which lowers the bar for everybody to have some sort of experience with it,” he said.
“There will be expectation for people coming out of university and equally switching jobs that they know how to use AI.”
AI has been used by EY to help education providers build course units which can be taught to students. EY business services and intelligent operations leader Ean Evans said that the cycle time to deliver a complete unit has improved by 50 per cent as a result.
“The level of quality has improved and the number of cycles it needs to go through of review has come down,” he said.
“There’s an acceleration there and less of a burden on the client’s academic staff to go through two or three review cycles and it is also more cost effective for the client.”
Clients who use the services of the big four now expect a greater return on investment as a result of AI, such as faster turnaround times and in some cases are demanding a cheaper rate because of more technology involvement.
Mr Azim said that AI was not reducing the quality of work but ensuring that the same standard could be produced in one week to two weeks.
“AI allows us to maintain that standard of quality within a short span of time, which then allows you to do more of the same,” he said.
“So you’re getting through your backlog faster, or you’re starting to do more strategic work – as in our staff is starting to do more strategic work.”
Mr Munnelly said that clients now expected a reduction in price because of less human contact involved, which he said needed to be balanced against the additional cost of technology which firms have.
“Clients are getting smart about AI and we’ve got to be realistic about this being a benefit to everybody and also the way we charge. This is going to benefit our clients in terms of quality and cost, but it should also benefit our firm,” he said.
“You could have one price for customers that want it all done by humans and another price for those happy with AI.
“This won’t last long because clients will realise that the quality is actually better for the team that are using AI to do good.”
And clients were also asking about what percentage of development can be sped up with AI and how much time can the technology save consultants.
As AI gets used more and more, firms say that they are now working with the government to develop a framework around how it is used ethically and how to ensure it can be trusted.