EY unveils over 20 new tech capabilities in its Assurance sector through its $1b partnership with Microsoft in the first year

The EY organization today announces an expansion of its collaboration with Microsoft, as the EY organization completes the first 12 months of a four-year investment of more than US$1b to deliver its next-generation Assurance technology platform. The EY organization’s investment is part of a sustained focus on maintaining the highest level of audit quality, promoting confidence in business and the capital markets, and providing for a scalable and right-sized audit that aligns with companies’ transformation agendas.

The expansion of the EY organization’s collaboration with Microsoft follows this year’s release of more than 20 new major Assurance technology capabilities. This is part of the multi-year EY program to integrate advanced technologies into one seamless platform and drive transformation through the next generation of data access capabilities and advanced analytics; Artificial Intelligence (AI); and an elevated user experience. This transformation is supporting 500,000 EY professionals and external users, powered by Microsoft Azure.

“The EY organization has reached the first milestone in a four-year investment program to integrate and transform EY Assurance technology. The EY and Microsoft Alliance is central to this program as the EY organization delivers on its commitment to continuously improve audit quality; drive sustainable long-term value; and facilitate greater confidence among EY stakeholders and the stakeholders of companies served,” says Marie-Laure Delarue, EY Global Vice Chair – Assurance.

The first 12 months of the EY organization’s Assurance technology investment have included the release of next-generation audit data analytics utilizing Microsoft Power BI. The EY organization’s release uses the combined power of EY and Microsoft capabilities, which provide agile development and delivery in a unified approach – including Microsoft Fabric. This transforms the user experience and supports the full integration of data analytics capabilities directly into the workflow of the EY Assurance technology platform. EY Assurance teams now process over 775b lines of journal entry data each year, as part of the EY digitally transformed audit.

This follows the integration of EY Canvas – the EY organization’s audit technology application – with Microsoft Azure, which has provided strong performance and extensibility in support of EY’s delivery of more than 150,000 audits globally. This includes the 99.99% availability of EY Canvas powered by Microsoft Azure in the last 12 months, enabling one of the largest business-to-business (B2B) platforms in the profession.

The recent release of new Assurance technology capabilities across the EY organization includes globally scaled AI. These AI enabled capabilities – leveraging publicly available and EY generated data – are directly integrated with EY Canvas to support EY Assurance professionals in assessing risk. The EY organization is also introducing new AI enabled capabilities in predictive analytics; content search and summarization; and document intelligence, including financial statement tie-out procedures. Through these developments, EY teams have been using Azure Cognitive Services, to integrate AI into the audit process.

The EY and Microsoft Alliance additionally provides EY Assurance teams with early access to new Microsoft technologies, and the ability to integrate more Microsoft products into the EY Assurance technology platform. This includes the internal EY release of Azure OpenAI Service, helping EY professionals to experience the potential of generative AI capabilities; and to benefit from early access to Microsoft 365 Co-Pilot.

“EY’s Assurance technology platform, powered by the Microsoft Cloud, is enabling the transformation of EY’s audit and assurance services. Our common aim to advance game-changing new technologies, including data-driven AI, will remain central as we iterate on the next generation of EY and Microsoft technologies,” says Arun Ulagaratchagan, Corporate Vice President of Azure Data, Microsoft.