Artificial intelligence is no longer a speculative bet for global professional services firms—it’s a structural shift in how expertise is created, decisions are made, and value is delivered to clients. As the pace of innovation accelerates, organizations face growing pressure to move faster, operate with greater consistency, and deliver insight at scale, all without eroding trust.
For EY, the question wasn’t whether to invest in AI. It was how to earn the right to scale it.
During the AI Tour New York, Mark Luquire, Managing Director and Global Co‑Innovation Leader at EY, shared how the firm is moving from AI ambition to enterprise execution—by becoming client zero, embedding AI into daily work, and keeping human judgment at the center of transformation.
Operating across more than 180 countries with hundreds of thousands of professionals gives EY a unique vantage point on transformation—and a responsibility to prove what works before advising clients.
Several years ago, EY launched an internal AI assistant built on Azure OpenAI capabilities. What began as an internal deployment moved into full global production in a matter of weeks, reaching hundreds of thousands of employees. That experience reshaped how the firm understood AI’s role.
“The client‑zero story is a way for us to say: we’ve done this for ourselves—now let us help you do the same.”
— Mark Luquire, Managing Director & Global Co‑Innovation Leader, EY
Putting AI directly into employees’ hands helped surface real use cases—how people wanted to work differently, where friction existed, and what actually created value. That lived experience became the foundation for how EY partners with clients navigating similar complexity, often with far less margin for error.
EY doesn’t treat AI as another productivity layer. It’s embedded into the firm’s global strategy as a platform capability that reshapes services across tax, audit, consulting, and advisory.
AI helps professionals synthesize vast regulatory and financial data sets, accelerate document review, and surface insights that previously took weeks to uncover. The impact isn’t automation for its own sake—it’s consistency, quality, and speed at enterprise scale.
“AI isn’t just another tool—it’s a platform shift in how people work and how we deliver value to clients.”
— Mark Luquire, Managing Director & Global Co‑Innovation Leader, EY
By augmenting expertise rather than replacing it, AI enables more people to operate like experts—delivering higher‑quality guidance with greater confidence.
Early experimentation mattered, but scale required something more deliberate. As AI capabilities expanded across EY, two things became clear. First, innovation often emerged from the edges—people closest to the work identifying new possibilities. Second, not every experiment should scale. The firm needed a model that balanced democratized access with enterprise‑grade execution.
A key inflection point came when EY began extending AI beyond individual productivity into repeatable, action‑oriented workflows. With Microsoft 365 Copilot, AI entered the flow of everyday work—helping professionals synthesize information and prepare insights where they already worked. From there, Copilot Studio enabled EY to design AI agents that could take on more structured tasks across processes, helping teams move from experimentation to execution without losing control or trust.
That balance allowed EY to identify which use cases to industrialize, where to invest deeply, and how to embed AI into everyday workflows rather than isolating it as a special initiative. AI stopped being something teams tried and became something they used.
Scaling AI isn’t just a technical challenge—it’s a trust challenge.
For EY, governance isn’t about slowing innovation. It’s about enabling it responsibly. The firm invested early in responsible AI frameworks, transparency, and security to ensure AI outputs could be trusted—by professionals and by clients.
AI is designed to amplify human judgment, not replace it. People remain accountable for decisions, context, and client relationships. That clarity is essential in a profession where trust is foundational.
Looking ahead, Luquire sees AI reshaping professional services by expanding access to institutional knowledge and taking on repetitive tasks—freeing professionals to focus on higher‑value work.
“AI will continue to transform professional services—creating more experts in the organization and allowing people to focus on the work that truly adds value for clients.”
— Mark Luquire, Managing Director & Global Co‑Innovation Leader, EY
As AI agents become part of the workforce, new skills emerge; judgment, oversight, and the ability to work alongside intelligent systems. The future EY is building is human‑led and AI‑powered—where technology accelerates insight, but people remain at the center.
EY’s journey offers a clear lesson for leaders: AI transformation isn’t about adopting the latest tools. It’s about earning the right to scale through internal experience, responsible governance, and relentless focus on outcomes.
By becoming client zero, embedding AI into daily work, and designing for trust, EY is turning AI strategy into real‑world execution on a global scale.
This thought leadership piece is part of Microsoft in Business coverage from AI Tour New York, highlighting how leaders are translating AI strategy into real‑world execution at scale. Explore more conversations:
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