Dive Brief:
- KPMG expanded its alliance with Google Cloud Wednesday, as the companies established a program to help the accounting firm’s clients accelerate generative AI adoption and broader digital transformation, the announcement said.
- The professional services firm will deploy Gemini for Google Cloud, a generative AI assistant, for internal use and has already given developers access to Google’s Codey model, a KPMG spokesperson said in an email.
- KPMG and other professional services companies are deploying generative AI capabilities for their own benefit and to develop expertise to assist clients. “Through this enhanced alliance relationship, KPMG will enable more Fortune 500 companies to adopt GenAI safely and securely,” the company said.
Dive Insight:
Reaching AI goals takes upfront investment in skill development and deployment practices. KPMG is tackling both, learning how to walk the walk in order to better direct enterprise adoption.
The company is not alone among its peers.
EY completed a $1.4 billion AI investment in September. As part of the push, the company rolled out a large language model and launched an in-house platform. PwC also rolled out internal generative AI tools and bolstered its capabilities as part of a $1 billion, 3-year roadmap detailed last year.
Accenture and Deloitte have made inroads on AI plans, too, as professional services companies funnel billions into the technology’s development and employee skills.
KPMG developed an internal generative AI tool last year to reduce administrative burdens and improve audit quality. To ease adoption, the company provided employees with a prompt library explaining how best to interact with the tool.
Google Cloud will work to upskill KPMG employees to support its goals, which include delivering a broad range of AI solutions related to security, customer support and strategic planning.
In addition to the Google Cloud partnership, KPMG mapped out plans last July to invest $2 billion in Microsoft cloud and AI services over the next five years.
“We’ve been playing in the AI space for a while, but this is going to take it all to a whole new level,” Lou Trebino, KPMG’s audit chief technology officer, said in an interview with CFO Dive in July.
KPMG was an early adopter of Microsoft Copilot for 365 and participated in the early-access program alongside tens of thousands of enterprise users, including Visa and General Motors. The company formed an AI and Digital Innovation Group in September to focus specifically on responsible practices and safeguards.
