The EY organisation has partnered with Microsoft in order to deliver its new Assurance technology platform, as part of a USD 1 billion investment program. The partnership follows EY’s completion of its first 12 months investment of USD 1 billion for the Assurance technology platform.

The investment was made on a four-year plan and it represents a part of a sustained focus that the company has on maintaining improved audit quality, promoting efficiency in business and capital markets, as well as providing for a scalable audit that aligns with the enterprises’ development agendas. The expansion of EY’s collaboration with Microsoft represents a part of this year’s release of more than 20 new Assurance technology offerings and capabilities. It is incorporated in the multi-year EY programme that aims to integrate advanced technology into a single platform, as well as to drive transformation and growth through the use of data access products and improved analytics, artificial intelligence (AI), as well as an overall enhanced client experience.

More information on the launch The integration of the Microsoft Artificial Intelligence tools within the EY service aims to provide the Assurance technology platform with improved performance and the possibility to meet the needs, preferences, and demands of customers in a secure manner. Furthermore, the recent releases include several new capabilities, such as integrated and transformed analytics which use Microsoft Azure and Microsoft Power BI. The process currently has 500,000 EY professionals, experts, and external users, provided by Microsoft Azure.

The first 12 months of the investment included the release of the audit data analytics solution that leveraged Microsoft Power BI. Following this announcement, the launch was designed by combining the EY and Microsoft capabilities in order to offer an improved and accelerated development and delivery process in a unified approach, which includes Microsoft Fabric. This aimed to support the full integration of data analytics offerings directly in the workflow of the Assurance technology platform.

This launch followed the integration of EY Canvas, an audit technology application, with Microsoft Azure. Furthermore, the recent release of the new Assurance technology capabilities across the EY included the globally scaped AI service. The new artificial intelligence offerings were designed by using publicly available and EY-generated data and are currently integrated into the EY Canvas directly, in order to improve the manner in which EY Assurance professionals assess risks.

Moreover, the organisation will also introduce a new AI-enabled set of tools in predictive analytics, document intelligence, content search and summarisation, as well as financial statement tie-out procedures. To integrate the AI offerings into the audit process, EY used Azure Cognitive services. The partnership is set to provide EY Assurance teams with early access to the new Microsoft technologies and releases, as well as the possibility to integrate more Microsoft solutions and products into their EU Assurance technology platform.

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