BENGALURU: Janet Truncale, global chair and CEO of EY, stated that the professional services firm's India operations are increasingly becoming central to its global AI strategy. More than a quarter of its four lakh employees are based in the country, and its workforce in India is among the fastest adopters of new technologies.
This importance was underscored on Thursday when Truncale launched the EY.ai Centre for Reimagination in Bengaluru. This client experience centre is designed to help companies transition from isolated AI pilots to full-scale business transformation. The centre is part of EY's planned $1.4 billion investment in AI.
In an exclusive interaction with TOI, Truncale emphasized that the choice of India was deliberate. "The adoption of technology by our workforce in India is like no other. They understand it because they're living it – this is a tech hub, right! And it's always been the innovation centre for us."
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The centre aims to showcase AI capabilities across sectors such as retail, banking, manufacturing, healthcare, and life sciences. It helps clients understand how AI can reshape business models, operating models, and customer experience. Truncale noted that EY is also using itself as "client zero." She explained that the firm has been clear about transforming its own businesses before advising clients. A prime example is audit: EY built a global audit platform, Canvas, a decade ago for its 160,000 clients and over 100,000 audit professionals. Now, it is integrating agentic AI on top of that platform.
Truncale described this as not a small use case – "it's end to end." The platform manages workflow, accounting, and auditing knowledge for everyone on the system. An auditor who previously had to consult manuals to understand how to audit a banking allowance for loan losses can now ask an assurance agent and receive guidance in real time. EY is undertaking similar work in tax, where its knowledge catalogue has been "agentified" by country.
Many global analysts anticipate that such agentification will significantly impact the talent requirements of professional services firms, including their consulting businesses. When asked about this, Truncale said AI is changing the nature of work for employees and consultants but is in no way reducing the need for junior talent. "Every one of our businesses is relying on bringing in new skills, new perspectives, kids from college. The question is, how fast can you get them to operate at a higher level and not do the menial work."
She added, "I feel very strongly that academia has to prepare folks for this new tech-enabled workforce better. Some countries and some universities get that more so than others." Ajay Anand, managing partner for EY Global Delivery Services (GDS), noted that just in the last year, GDS hired 25,000 people, many from campuses.
Truncale highlighted that opportunities are also rising. For instance, boards are asking how they can make decisions using real data and synthetic data, and how they should control agents working alongside humans.
