EY refers to the global organization, and may refer to one or more, of the member firms of Ernst & Young Global Limited, each of which is a separate legal entity. Ernst & Young Global Limited, a UK company limited by guarantee, does not provide services to clients.
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To address the challenges identified, EY teams took a strategic and phased approach to developing its GenAI solution. Alignment started at the top, with general executive sponsorship setting the tone for the entire organization, fostering a culture of innovation and responsible AI use. Working closely with risk management at each stage of product development addressed that all security, compliance and ethical considerations were met.
Establishing a remarkable pace of innovation, the EYQ team stood up a proof of concept (POC) in approximately four weeks. The POC was successfully launched to 300,000 EY people, providing them with a secure, private environment to experience the capabilities of GenAI. This initial deployment of EYQ focused on providing a seamless ChatGPT-like experience, crucial to demonstrating the potential of GenAI in EY.
To address the need to codify EY knowledge and data into EYQ, EY teams focused on developing specialized conversational agents within EYQ that are tailored to specific internal domains or functions. These domain-specific agents provided immediate responses to prompts in specialized areas, helping EY people execute tasks quickly and efficiently. This phase contributed to EYQ being not only broad in its application but also deep in its contextual relevance. This marked the beginning of the evolution from a POC to a broad GenAI ecosystem.
For example, EYQ offers a conversational agent that supports EY people with all queries related to the Human Resources (HR) domain. A US EY employee, for instance, can leverage the agent to inquire about a 401(k)-pension plan and instantly receive an accurate, contextual answer, eliminating the time-intensive task of seeking out an appropriate HR professional.
Similarly, EY teams realized that there was an opportunity in applying GenAI to improve the client engagement, opportunity management and service delivery experience for EY practitioners. Today, EY practitioners can leverage a conversational agent within EYQ to understand the different deal and delivery phases of an engagement, to better address client challenges and circumvent the inefficiencies and redundancies of navigating through 70 different applications and information sources.
To further improve the user experience, EY teams developed a robust orchestration framework for EYQ. This framework intelligently manages the integration and interaction of related domain-specific agents based on user-provided context. It automatically determines which agent or combination of agents, will produce the most contextually relevant and accurate outcomes. This capability to interact with multiple agents at once, in a single conversation, is unique and largely streamlines the task completion for EY people.
In addition to conversational agents, EY teams integrated other capabilities such as prompt management. Unlike traditional prompt libraries, EYQ helps users leverage AI to generate better prompts and share across the firm through a centralized library. This approach facilitated the continuous improvement and tailoring of the prompts to the specific needs of EY people.
Taking EYQ further with team collaboration
EYQ not only improves individual experiences but takes it one step further to elevate team collaboration through the introduction of shared workspaces. These workspaces help enable team members to work together in a conversation with EYQ, rather than individually. This establishes EYQ as an integral team collaborator, reshaping conventional work practices, a unique ability for multi-user dialogue that distinguishes EYQ from other similar top-tier solutions available in the market today.
EYQ also supports technologists who want to develop both experimental and innovative GenAI tools to grow EYQ's ecosystem. Development environments allow users to innovate, experiment and help deliver GenAI technology solutions, products and skills. These environments support both code-first and low-code development, catering to a wide range of technical experience. For example, users can create a Copilot solution within Microsoft Copilot Studio and publish it to EYQ, introducing new personal productivity capabilities that can be shared more broadly within service lines or even globally across the firm.
The development of EYQ was underpinned by the firm’s Responsible AI principles. The global EY organization’s commitment to developing and using AI ethically and responsibly determined that EYQ adhered to the highest standards of fairness, transparency and accountability. This commitment reinforced confidence in the technology and made sure that the benefits of AI were realized without compromising ethical standards.