EY Harnesses Agentic AI via Copilot to Empower Employees, Elevate Client Success

Ernst & Young (EY), a global leader in professional services and business advisory, is leveraging Microsoft 365 Copilot to bridge the widening gap between accelerating business demands and human capabilities in an AI-driven world.

By deploying Copilot to over 150,000 employees worldwide, EY is evolving from traditional AI assistants to “agentic AI” teams—where humans act as directors overseeing autonomous agents to execute complex workflows.

This initiative empowers EY’s workforce, embeds AI operationally across the firm, and positions it to deliver transformative value to clients navigating technological shifts.

Challenges Addressed

EY grapples with the seismic divide between future organizational needs and current human-tech limitations, particularly in measuring AI’s value for clients and internal processes. Pain points include fragmented systems and manual efforts, such as in finance, where collaboration across tools slows outcomes and hampers innovation.

As Global Innovation Market Activation Leader Edwina Fitzmaurice notes, “The stakes are high right now for our clients and for EY, particularly around the area of measuring and managing the value of AI.”

Implementation Strategy

EY’s rollout emphasizes seamless integration and cultural shift:

• Deployment: Copilot was rapidly scaled to 150,000+ global employees, integrated into daily workflows within familiar Microsoft 365 environments.
• Adoption Focus: Hands-on learning and change management reframed AI agents as “colleagues” rather than tools, fostering experimentation.
• Customization: Using Copilot Studio, employees build bespoke agents, enabling non-technical users to create AI teams for tailored tasks. This democratizes innovation, allowing business users—not just engineers—to drive development.

Global Managing Partner for Business Enablement Anthony Caterino highlights the paradigm shift: “Microsoft AI has been instrumental in putting EY at the forefront of technology. We’re not just flipping the script. We’re writing a whole new story.”

Key Use Cases and Benefits

EY’s agentic approach reimagines processes from the ground up, automating routine tasks to unlock human creativity:

• Innovation and Strategy Agents: Fitzmaurice developed an “Innovation Maturity Modeling” agent to benchmark company innovation without complete datasets; a “Technology Convergence Framework” agent to explore synergies like AI-blockchain or AI-quantum intersections; and personal agents (e.g., an editor for writing reviews, or “skeptic/advocate” pairs to refine viewpoints).
• Finance Automation: The finance team created a “Purchase Order Analyzer” agent that ingests data from disparate systems, automates analysis, and streamlines cross-team collaboration—slashing manual effort.
• Broader Benefits: Agents accelerate accuracy and speed, embed AI into every business function, and free capacity for high-judgment work like strategic growth.

As Global Business Enablement AI and Innovation Leader Roger Park states, “With Copilot Studio, our people are innovating with agents that help them get more work done, more accurately, and more quickly.” Fitzmaurice adds enthusiastically: “I love building agents now because I can. So can anybody.”

Outcomes and Impact

• Scale and Engagement: Full global deployment with high adoption, transitioning agents from assistants to integral team members.
• Operational Shift: AI is now “embedded into every part of our business,” moving from theoretical pilots to production realities that deliver client value.
• Innovation Democratization: Business users lead agent creation, fostering a culture of rapid experimentation and process reinvention.
• Business Transformation: EY is foundational for the “agentic frontier,” where humans oversee agent teams for end-to-end workflows, amplifying ingenuity and codifying expertise.

Park emphasizes: “Our AI initiatives are not theoretical. They’re operational… Agentic AI is unlocking the potential of our people to transform our business so we can help our clients transform theirs.”

Future Outlook

EY is intentionally redesigning processes with agentic AI in mind, starting from scratch to maximize efficiency. This positions the firm to craft cutting-edge, tailored AI solutions for clients, embracing change to lead with technology, empower people, and shape extraordinary outcomes. As Caterino envisions: “AI is giving us an opportunity to rethink and really flip the script. How would we create a process if we could start from scratch and design it with agentic AI in mind?”

This case underscores EY’s leadership in human-AI collaboration, turning potential disruption into a competitive edge for professional services.