EY and Microsoft have expanded their partnership, pledging more than $1bn over five years to help organisations scale AI and achieve enterprise-wide results.
The programme will see Microsoft’s Forward Deployed Engineers (FDE) and EY’s industry teams working together. It will use Microsoft’s FDE AI-native Hypervelocity Engineering model to accelerate AI implementation within clients’ change and delivery structures.
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In a statement, EY said that the move is an “important milestone” in the long-standing EY-Microsoft alliance across tax, assurance, consulting and EY-Parthenon.
The companies say the initiative is aimed at helping clients become “frontier firms” through large-scale AI adoption, workforce upskilling and ongoing optimisation of agentic AI transformation.
EY and Microsoft will deploy integrated, industry-aligned teams of engineers and business consultants to co-develop secure, sector-specific AI solutions.
EY Global chair and CEO Janet Truncale said: “Together with Microsoft, EY is supporting clients to unlock value through rapid deployment of AI at scale.
“By combining people and innovation in this next phase of the Alliance, clients will be empowered to realise the transformative power of agentic AI within the enterprise.”
The initiative is anchored in EY’s use of itself as “client zero”, testing Microsoft technologies in-house.
EY reports rolling out Copilot to 150,000 users, citing a 15% productivity increase redeployed into client work and learning.
The company said that it is also expanding Copilot via Microsoft 365 E7: The Frontier Suite to more than 400,000 people globally, embedding agentic AI tools across its operations.
EY has also implemented other Microsoft AI capabilities including modernising finance processes with Microsoft Power Platform, deploying a multi-agent framework and using Microsoft Azure AI Document Intelligence on its Global Tax Platform.
Microsoft Commercial Business CEO Judson Althoff said: “Our initiative combines Microsoft’s trusted AI platform and engineering teams with EY’s industry capabilities and experience as Client Zero – applying these technologies across their own organisation – to help customers move beyond pilots to enterprise execution, enhancing decision-making and delivering measurable impact.”
Initially, the joint services will focus on finance, tax, risk, human resources and supply chain functions in sectors including financial services, industrials and energy, consumer and retail, government and healthcare.
