PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (PwC) has unveiled plans to take a position $1 billion in generative synthetic intelligence (AI) expertise for its US operations over the subsequent three years. Collaborating with Microsoft Corp. and OpenAI, the makers of ChatGPT, PwC goals to automate points of its tax, audit, and consulting companies.
The multiyear funding, introduced lately, will embody funding to rent extra AI professionals, prepare present workers in AI capabilities, and goal AI software program makers for potential acquisitions.
Generative AI instruments can generate natural-language responses, pictures, or laptop code based mostly on person textual content prompts. PwC’s goal shouldn’t be solely to develop and incorporate generative AI into its expertise stack and client-services platforms but additionally to advise different corporations on leveraging generative AI whereas serving to them construct these instruments, says Mohamed Kande, PwC’s Vice Chair and Co-Chief of US Consulting Options and World Advisory Chief.
Working with OpenAI and Microsoft
PwC plans to pay for entry to OpenAI’s GPT-4 language mannequin, the underlying software program that powers ChatGPT, with a purpose to construct and run apps on Microsoft’s Azure cloud. Though ChatGPT is a free on-line software, OpenAI costs builders to entry its language mannequin and create their software program instruments. The upgraded mannequin has been educated on huge quantities of language knowledge from varied sources to understand natural-language prompts and generate coherent responses.
Potential Purposes of Generative AI in PwC’s Operations
As soon as the fashions are totally educated and examined, Kande envisions the expertise being utilized for shortly writing stories, making ready compliance paperwork, analyzing and evaluating enterprise methods, figuring out operational inefficiencies, and creating advertising supplies and gross sales campaigns, amongst different purposes. “That is about utilizing generative AI to run the corporate in a extra environment friendly approach,” he mentioned. “Embracing this expertise is crucial.”
The Position of Microsoft’s Azure Cloud
Microsoft’s AI platform company vice chairman, Eric Boyd, mentioned that PwC’s transfer will allow entry to OpenAI’s generative AI instruments with the added compliance and knowledge safety provided by Azure cloud-computing service. Microsoft itself introduced a multiyear, multibillion-dollar funding in OpenAI, a startup based in 2015. Boyd mentioned that over 1,000 organizations are presently utilizing OpenAI instruments on Microsoft’s cloud for varied functions, reminiscent of buyer assist, conversational AI, summarization, writing help, and knowledge extraction and classification.
Generative AI within the Accounting and Finance Business
Different main accounting companies, like KPMG LLP and Ernst & Younger, are additionally investing in generative AI. TurboTax proprietor Intuit Inc. is creating its personal generative AI language mannequin for monetary administration, educated on years of interactions with its enterprise prospects.
Analysts say that accounting, tax preparation, auditing, and different monetary companies are prime areas for generative AI. Rowan Curran, an analyst at Forrester Analysis Inc., mentioned that enormous language fashions like GPT-4 may also help with data discovery and retrieval, notably when exploring unstructured and semi-structured knowledge, and have the potential to enhance report preparation processes with “a lot decrease effort from the human auditors.”
Challenges and Future Outlook
Regardless of the potential advantages, utilizing generative AI in areas like tax preparation requires skilled validation, and it’d create compliance points, says Mark D. McDonald, Senior Director Analyst at Gartner Inc. Nevertheless, Kande emphasizes that PwC’s aim is to not substitute employees with generative
