KPMG and Microsoft enter landmark agreement to put AI at the forefront of professional services

KPMG and Microsoft have announced a significant expansion of their global relationship that will reshape professional services across a number of business-critical areas including workforce modernization, safe and secure development, and use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) solutions for clients, industries and society more broadly.

The collaboration, which spans more than a decade, underpinned by this major expansion will benefit KPMG firms’ core business areas in the following ways:

By infusing data analytics, AI and Azure Cognitive Services into the audit process, through the KPMG smart audit platform KPMG Clara, 85,000 audit professionals who collectively work on hundreds of thousands of audits a year will be empowered to focus more closely on higher-risk areas of the audit, sector-specific risks and challenges – to the benefit of both stakeholders and capital markets. This integration also opens up new market opportunities for KPMG professionals and their clients. For example, with the integration of Microsoft Fabric, KPMG teams will have the ability to directly point to client data instead of having to ingest it, which is a key component to helping enable KPMG professionals to perform audits on a more real time basis.

Integrating Azure OpenAI Service and Microsoft Fabric into KPMG Digital Gateway, a KPMG single platform solution, will give clients access to the full suite of KPMG Tax & Legal technologies, and allow them to gain more integrated and transparent access to their data and take a more holistic management approach to their tax functions. This was demonstrated most recently through a co-developed AI solution using the Azure OpenAI Service that helps to analyze environmental, social and governance (ESG) data, establish data patterns and draft ESG tax transparency reports, all at increased speed and scale. Additionally, KPMG firms will operate a generative-AI powered “virtual assistant” to create new client service models to help tax professionals become more efficient. It will also help with revenue-generating opportunities such as product experience enhancements and knowledge management for complex tax laws.

Developing an AI-enabled application development and knowledge platform on Microsoft Azure will expedite the creation of specialized solutions for clients, helping to enhance their competitive advantage and profitability while putting ethics and security at the very core of the offerings. The benefits and ongoing success of this continued collaboration already include a joint engagement with Coca-Cola EuroPacific Partners (CCEP) of which Peter Brickley, Chief Information Officer at CCEP said, “KPMG and Microsoft are working together with Coca-Cola EuroPacific Partners on innovative use cases which pioneer improvements to back-office efficiency using generative AI on the Azure platform. By using this new technology, we will prepare our organization for the future, improve our employee experience and support our growth ambitions globally.”

KPMG professionals will work together with Microsoft to help support businesses with their ESG agendas. Building on the success of the KPMG Circularity Tracker and an ESG and climate data management and analytics solution, both of which have Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability and Microsoft Azure at their core, joint teams will continue to help clients to unify their data sources, leverage the required inputs to help make real-time value-add decisions, and help them to deliver on their sustainability commitments.

In addition, to enhance the commercial prospects of the agreement, KPMG and Microsoft will continue to explore and participate in joint opportunities where they can work together to drive social and community impact worldwide. These currently include the UNESCO global education coalition and the KPMG 10x30 strategy to help economically empower 10 million underprivileged youths by 2030 — through education, employment and entrepreneurship opportunities. The companies will also continue to work together to enhance the reliability of carbon accounting through the Carbon Call to which both KPMG and Microsoft were founding signatories.

Gerald Kasimu
Head of Advisory, KPMG Africa
T: +254 (20) 2806000
E: gkasimu@kpmg.co.ke

KPMG has a notable ‘African Footprint’ and is  well used to serving clients across the  continent. The firms are structured into clusters  that are aimed at facilitating efficiency in how  we work with our clients on the continent. These  clusters are West Africa, East Africa, Southern Africa, Francophone and Angola. Angola is  specially individualised due to its use of the  Portuguese as the official business language.

We have 29 firms servicing 54 countries across  the continent offering a full range of Audit, Tax  and Advisory Services. With this coverage KPMG is able to draw from a pool of resources  with a wide range of skills and experience,  enabling us to provide high quality services to  our clients. We are also able to offer  coordinated services where the client is  represented in different countries. These  countries operate as a cohesive region and  serve our clients in the French-speaking African nations. KPMG has licensed offices in Angola,  Egypt, Morocco, Libya and Tunisia. Although these practices do not form part of KPMG Africa  there are excellent working relationships in place with professionals in these offices through the KPMG network. The rest of Africa is covered by KPMG through a practice within the region. By undertaking assignments in neighbouring countries, we demonstrate our ability to serve our clients’ needs wherever they operate in Africa.

KPMG is a global organization of independent professional services firms providing Audit, Tax and Advisory services. KPMG is the brand under which the member firms of KPMG International Limited (“KPMG International”) operate and provide professional services. “KPMG” is used to refer to individual member firms within the KPMG organization or to one or more member firms collectively.

KPMG firms operate in 143 countries and territories with more than 265,000 partners and employees working in member firms around the world. Each KPMG firm is a legally distinct and separate entity and describes itself as such. Each KPMG member firm is responsible for its own obligations and liabilities.

KPMG International Limited is a private English company limited by guarantee. KPMG International Limited and its related entities do not provide services to clients.

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