KPMG Invests $100 Million in Google Cloud Partnership to Accelerate Enterprise AI Adoption

KPMG Invests USD 100 Million in Google Cloud Alliance to Accelerate Enterprise AI Adoption

AI solutions target industries like healthcare, retail, and financial services for tailored transformation. KPMG and Google Cloud announced on Wednesday a major expansion of their US alliance, focused on advancing generative AI, data analytics, and cybersecurity solutions among global enterprises. KPMG revealed plans to invest USD 100 million over the next few years to bolster its enterprise artificial intelligence services through its partnership with Alphabet's Google Cloud. The move is expected to generate USD 1 billion in incremental growth for KPMG through solutions powered by Google Cloud's generative AI technology. Also Read: Cloudera to Acquire Octopai to Enhance Data Management and AI Capabilities KPMG has reportedly seen a 10x increase in Google Cloud-related bookings over the past two years. In April 2024, KPMG created a Google Cloud Center of Excellence (CoE) to align its product development, industry expertise, and technical resources for enterprises. With the new investment, KPMG will collaborate on new solutions with Google Cloud to help clients solve complex business challenges, focusing on data modernisation and responsible AI adoption across industries. Initial efforts will target the consumer and retail, healthcare, and financial services sectors. KPMG said it has deployed Vertex AI Search internally to better connect and analyse its corpus of data. Building on this experience, KPMG is now developing advanced gen AI agents for clients to further enhance knowledge assistance and data management experiences. By building AI agents with Vertex AI and grounding data through retrieval augmented generation (RAG) techniques, KPMG can help analysts complete financial research tasks, analyse market trends, and summarise lengthy reports with ease. Also Read: Red Hat to Acquire Neural Magic to Drive Gen AI Across Hybrid Cloud Environments "By tailoring solutions to the specific customers, business models, and workflows of each industry, KPMG and Google Cloud will empower our clients to fully leverage AI and drive value across their enterprises," said Steve Chase, Vice Chair at KPMG, Artificial Intelligence and Digital Innovation. "Integrating KPMG's deep industry, data and AI expertise with Google Cloud's cutting-edge AI technology is a powerful combination that has boosted our clients' market advantage, and this expansion will scale the impact we deliver for clients." "As technological innovation accelerates and our clients' needs rapidly evolve, technology partners like Google Cloud are critical to building capabilities in AI, data, and cloud that help us drive sustainable and innovative growth for our clients and our firm," said Carl Carande, Global Head and US Vice Chair - KPMG Advisory. "KPMG has enabled some of the world's largest organizations to transform how they operate with Google Cloud's technology," said Matt Renner, President of Global Revenue, Google Cloud. "Through this next phase of our partnership, KPMG will help rapidly accelerate generative AI adoption by providing customers with the solutions, expertise, and technical resources needed to maximise potential from this powerful technology." With this expanded alliance, KPMG and Google Cloud aim to help businesses harness the power of generative AI to solve complex business challenges and drive sustainable growth.

KPMG to spend $100 million on AI partnership with Google Cloud

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - - KPMG said on Wednesday it would spend $100 million over the next four years to bolster its enterprise artificial intelligence services through a partnership with Alphabet's Google Cloud. Part of the money will be spent on payments directly to Google, though the majority will be spent on in-house efforts that leverage Google's products, Steve Chase, vice chair of AI and innovation for KPMG, told Reuters in an interview. That includes developing AI agents and training the firm's workforce to become proficient with the technology. While Wall Street waits on the technology industry to demonstrate returns commensurate with the billions in capital expenditure it is pouring into AI, professional services providers have become one of the first business beneficiaries of the technology as large businesses tap accounting and consulting firms for help on implementing AI inside their companies and product offerings. "We strongly are in the camp that it is moving from [proof of concept] and experimentation to scaling," Chase said. "We believe that professional services is going through the largest transformation that it will likely ever go through." He cited a KPMG poll of business leaders, which found that about 50% of surveyed organizations planned to spend $100 million on AI initiatives over the next 12 months, and about 20% planned to spend at least $250 million. Bookings for KPMG's Google Cloud-related services have grown 10-fold over the last two years, Chase said. In keeping with clients' demands, KPMG is spreading its bets across cloud providers. In July 2023, the firm announced a $2 billion commitment across five years to expand AI and cloud services via Microsoft. Google's president of revenue for its cloud division, Matt Renner, told Reuters the company is emphasizing partnering with consulting firms as part of its cloud growth strategy. The company's third-quarter earnings beat in October was driven in part by a 35% boost in cloud sales. Renner predicted that the three major cloud companies -- Amazon, Microsoft and Google -- and most professional services firms would continue to "grow pretty exponentially together." Chase declined to share how much KPMG has invested into its Google Cloud practice to date, but said Wednesday's tranche was the "largest direct investment commitment" with Google so far. "We anticipate making additional announcements about additional investments in this area," he said. (Reporting by Kenrick Cai in San Francisco; Editing by Sayantani Ghosh and Leslie Adler)

KPMG Launches $100 Million AI Partnership With Google Cloud | PYMNTS.com

KPMG will spend $100 million over the next four years on its enterprise AI services. It's part of an artificial intelligence (AI) partnership between the professional services giant and Google Cloud, Steve Chase, vice chair of AI and innovation for KPMG, said in an interview with Reuters posted Wednesday (Nov. 20). While part of the $100 million will cover payments to Google, most will be spent on in-house projects that use Google's tech, Chase said, such as developing AI agents and training KPMG staff to become proficient in the technology. The Reuters report notes that while Wall Street is waiting on the tech sector to show it can offer a return on the billions it has invested in AI, professional services companies are among the first businesses to benefit from the technology, with businesses turning to accounting and consulting firms for guidance on implementing AI. "We strongly are in the camp that it is moving from [proof of concept] and experimentation to scaling," Chase said. "We believe that professional services is going through the largest transformation that it will likely ever go through." He pointed to a poll of business leaders conducted by KPMG, which showed that 50% of companies planned to spend $100 million on AI projects in the next 12 months, with 20% planning to invest at least $250 million. Chase added that bookings for KPMG's Google Cloud-related services have increased tenfold over the last two years. It has led the company to seek other cloud providers, announcing last year a $2 billion, five-year commitment to expand AI and cloud services via Microsoft. KPMG's findings are in line with research by PYMNTS Intelligence showing that 78% of chief financial officers (CFOs) plan to increase their investments in generative AI (GenAI). "CFOs are turning to GenAI for medium-complexity tasks, such as financial reporting, data visualizations and forecasting," PYMNTS wrote last week. "Consider 60% of CFOs said their companies are using GenAI for these tasks, marking a change from earlier this year, when many relied on AI for more routine activities, such as invoice processing or basic data entry." The share of companies using AI for medium-impact functions has climbed from 35% in March to 45% in June, a sign that companies are moving beyond basic applications and starting to integrate AI more strategically into their operations. This broader adoption of GenAI shows confidence in the technology's potential to bring value other than simple task automation.