AI News Monitor

The world’s largest accounting firms plan to use AI agents as a digital workforce. This is exactly what many American employees are worried about.

The big four accounting firms—Deloitte, EY, PwC, and KPMG—are heavily investing in agentic AI as a digital workforce. They believe the technology will help them optimize operations and “liberate” thousands of hours of human effort a year.

Agentic AI refers to AI technology that autonomously completes tasks and makes decisions on behalf of humans. This is in contrast to generative AI, such as chatbots, which only generate text and images.

Deloitte has announced a new platform called Zora AI. This AI can perform a wide range of accounting, research, and financial analysis tasks independently. The company said the AI technology can monitor and manage expenses for organizations. These tasks include comparing numbers against industry trends and helping to identify where there is over or under-spending.

Deloitte is rolling out the technology to organizations in its portfolio. This includes nearly 90% of Fortune 500 companies and more than 8,500 private companies based in the US. Widespread adoption could see a vast majority of leading companies taking on a partially digital workforce.

Similarly, EY has launched a new EY.ai agentic platform, which Janet Truncale, the company’s Global Chair and CEO, said would “enhance productivity and operational excellence.” Truncale said that EY.ai was trained on “the collective knowledge of 400,000 skilled professionals and the broad spectrum of EY services.” It can use that data to execute tasks that were previously handled by human workers.

Both PwC and KPMG are also exploring how they can use AI agents to improve service delivery. KPMG’s global head of AI David Rowlands said the company had something in the works with its technology partners. He believes the company’s focus will be on leveraging AI to improve customer service and operational quality and efficiency. Meanwhile, PwC’s chief AI officer, Bivek Sharma, says the company is already employing AI agents internally for data analysis and improved customer communication. The company is now also advising client firms on the advantages of utilizing AI for growth and improved productivity.

This comes after reports last week that finance leader Morgan Stanley is planning to replace up to 2000 employees with AI. Interestingly, the news followed recent developments where Morgan Stanley and other top banking industry firms were using AI tools to free up a significant chunk of hours for employees.

With the firm ready to cut costs due to financial pressure, it deemed agentic AI tools as capable of competently replacing human workers. Employees across the US might rightly be worried about the impact these developments could have on labor over the next few years. With all big four firms keenly invested in AI agents as a digital workforce, there could be a knock-on effect. As powerful consulting firms for the world’s largest organizations, AI innovation in their workforce could influence other companies into adopting the same approaches.

All big four accounting firms have noted they are attracted to AI due to its efficiency, speed, and ability to work nonstop. These are significant advantages that AI has over humans. While company leaders have said that AI tools are only there to improve efficiency and free up hours for employees, a recent poll by the Pew Research Center showed that many lower and middle income employees in the US believe that an AI workforce in their organization will lead to fewer opportunities for them in the long run. Interestingly, however, workers in banking and accounting were among those more likely to say that AI will lead to more job opportunities for them.