IBL News | New York
This month, accounting giant KPMG said it plans to invest $2 billion in AI and cloud services across its business lines, automatizing aspects of its tax, audit, and consultancy services over the next five years.
The investment will be conducted through an expanded partnership with Microsoft, which KPMG expects will bring in over $12 billion in revenue over five years, as the firm helps companies integrate AI into their operations.
This amount would represent about 7% of the company’s global revenue, which totaled about $34.64 billion in the year.
KPMG’s Chief Executive, Bill Thomas, said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal that the company isn’t looking to use technology to eliminate jobs, but rather to reskill and enhance its workforce of 265,000 employees with AI skills—for example, by moving people to new roles or offering them training.
Its U.S. unit in June laid off almost 2,000 employees, four months after cutting nearly 700 in its consulting division.
Accenture earlier this year pledged to invest $3 billion in AI over the next three years, with the bulk to be put toward staffing. The company plans to double its AI-focused army of consultants to 80,000 through a mix of hiring, acquisitions, and training.
PwC said it would spend $1 billion on AI over the same time frame to expand and scale its AI offerings. As part of the push, PwC will partner with Microsoft to create offerings using OpenAI’s GPT-4 and ChatGPT alongside Microsoft’s Azure OpenAI Service.
McKinsey estimated that generative AI could add $4.4 trillion annually to the global economy, almost the economic equivalent of adding an entirely new country the size and productivity of the U.K. ($3.1 trillion GDP in 2021) to the world.
