PwC Partners With OpenAI to Utilize Chatbot Technology for Guidance
In a bid to enhance efficiency and reduce expenses, the Big Four audit firms are collaborating with OpenAI, the owner of ChatGPT, to provide clients with AI-generated guidance. PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP is among the firms joining forces with OpenAI to offer this innovative service.
The accounting firm plans to use artificial intelligence to consult on complex tax, legal, and human resources issues, such as conducting due diligence on companies, identifying compliance issues, and even making recommendations on whether to approve business deals.
The partnership makes PwC the first of the Big Four to partner with OpenAI, which is considered one of the frontrunners in generative AI technology with its ChatGPT chatbot.
Large auditing firms have cut costs to cope with the slowdown in professional services. PwC freezes pay rises and bonuses for some of its 25,000 UK employees, Deloitte LLP is to cut more than 800 jobs in the UK, Ernst & Young LLP is to cut around 5% of its UK financial services consulting workforce. KPMG LLP plans to cut 125 consultant jobs.
The OpenAI partnership, which is not based on ChatGPT, will not lead to job cuts in the near future, PwC said.
PwC’s new AI system “already behaves like a partner of 25 years,” Bivek Sharma, head of tax, legal and human resources at PwC UK, said in an interview on Monday.
“Corporate compliance is increasing globally, and with geopolitics, the complexity of the C-suite is unprecedented,” Sharma said. “A lot of people talk about how AI will lead to job displacement, but in reality AI is necessary to deal with these very complex situations.”
Harvey, an AI startup specializing in professional services backed by OpenAI, is also part of the partnership.
The system is currently being implemented in Great Britain, where around 650 employees will be able to test and train. The company plans to expand its service to 10,000 employees in more than 50 countries in the coming months. It allows employees to complete several large projects in the time it takes to complete one, and at a better level, PwC said. The partnership also enables large projects that would previously have been too expensive or too long.
Professional services is “an area we’re pretty excited about,” Brad Lightcap, chief operating officer of OpenAI, said in an interview via Zoom. “These models can be really powerful assistants in legal workflows, accounting workflows and tax workflows,” he said.
Big 4 audit firms have doubled down on AI as they seek to boost productivity. Rival KPMG announced a multibillion-dollar investment in Microsoft’s creative AI and cloud services, while Ernst & Young LLP recently partnered with IBM to leverage AI to boost HR processes. Deloitte has expanded its partnership with Google Cloud to develop AI-based solutions for its clients. PwC has also been using a chatbot service to speed up tasks such as summarizing documents since March.
“The risk here is that, under pressure from wage inflation in 2021, professional services firms will focus on using AI-based tools to reduce costs rather than developing better solutions,” said Fiona Czerniawska, CEO of Source Global Research. .
PwC did not disclose the value of the deal with OpenAI and Harvey, but said the UK company will spend 100 million pounds ($122 million) on AI this year.
