Microsoft & EY Go All-In on Enterprise AI With Over $1 Billion Joint Investment

Microsoft & EY have officially announced a new initiative, under which both companies will jointly invest more than $1 billion over the next five years, with the goal of helping businesses rapidly deploy AI across core operations. Interestingly, this is not just another AI partnership announcement with vague promises. Both companies are promising a full-scale effort focused on real deployment, real automation, and actual business workflows.

Microsoft & EY to jointly invest $1 billion for agentic AI push into businesses

As part of the new initiative, Microsoft’s Forward Deployed Engineers will now work directly alongside EY consultants and industry specialists. Together, the companies say they will help organizations scale AI inside finance, HR, tax, risk management, supply chain operations, healthcare, retail, government, and energy sectors.

One of the highlights of this partnership is what both companies call as “agentic AI transformation.” In simple words, businesses are being pushed next level, towards AI systems capable of handling multi-step tasks, workflows, and operational processes with far less human involvement.

EY also revealed it has already been acting as what it calls “Client Zero” for Microsoft’s AI rollout. According to the company, it initially deployed Copilot to 150,000 employees and reportedly saw a 15% productivity increase. EY is now expanding Microsoft 365 E7: The Frontier Suite across more than 400,000 workers globally.

EY has been internally using Microsoft’s AI tools for a while now

In addition to Copilot, EY says it already uses Microsoft AI tools across finance operations, tax systems, audit workflows, and document processing. One example mentioned in the announcement claims Microsoft Power Platform and Copilot Studio helped reduce lead times by 95% while cutting operational costs by more than 37%. Meanwhile, Microsoft Azure AI Document Intelligence reportedly reduced manual tax-related document workloads by up to 90%.

Speaking of Microsoft, partnerships like this are becoming a huge part of its broader AI strategy, especially as Copilot, Azure AI, and enterprise AI tools continue to integrate deeper into corporate infrastructure globally.