14. That’s (up to) how many hours a week EY’s global Vice Chair of tax Marna Ricker says she’s seeing their people save with AI tools. Here she is in an ad interview with Microsoft’s WorkLab:
Q: You’ve been driving AI transformation at EY, and you have been watching it reshape the broader world of tax services. How is it changing your industry?
A: I’m seeing whole companies shift to an “AI first” mindset. People are using AI as a digital assistant that sits alongside the other productivity tools they use every day. Tax and finance professionals are automating routine tasks, which frees up critical time for more strategic activities. AI is also helping with those strategic activities by summarizing information, identifying anomalies, and highlighting key themes. We’re already seeing up to 14 hours a week in time saved from these basic productivity gains.
In response to a different question she adds:
EY research shows that the typical tax team spends somewhere between 40 and 70 percent of their time gathering and manipulating data. Tax teams also face increasing levels of complexity around regulation and real-time reporting, downward pressure on budgets, and increased costs of keeping the technologies they use updated. They’re responsible for about the same number of decisions and actions today as they were 12 years ago, but they need to base those on 50 times the amount of data. Then there’s the ongoing headache of the growing skills gap.
AI is already helping to solve many of these challenges. The ability to process vast amounts of data more quickly and more accurately is a game changer for tax return compliance and reconciliation. Our ability to analyze and interpret regulations combined with predictive insights from AI will also help us move to real-time forecasting and make strategic planning decisions based on greater insight into future tax implications.
Earlier this week, EY announced via press release they will “transform” the global sales operation by “equipping the workforce with Microsoft client management tools and AI capabilities.” This, they said, will position the EY organization as one of Microsoft’s largest customers worldwide when the Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales implementation reaches at least 100,000 EY professionals across 700 offices and 150 countries by January 2025.
Wow! EY professionals are only working 26 hours per week? How do I apply for a job there?
EY doesn’t use VP titles…
Good catch, thank you. Should be Chair.
Top tip for service providers who charge on a T&M basis: when showcasing innovation, think carefully before signaling to the market that you’re getting the work done in much less time. Expect the next question from your client to be “so how much, exactly, will our fees be decreasing?”