Big Four face AI competition from smaller firms, says former EY UK boss

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Big Four firms face “challenges” in adopting artificial intelligence, said EY’s former UK boss Hywel Ball, as he announced plans to take up board roles at two AI-focused boutiques.

A number of boutique professional services start-ups have an edge by being able to build AI into their work unhampered, he said. “There is a patch in the middle” between being nimble and having “enough critical mass to give you the momentum”, creating opportunities for mid-sized firms, Ball added.

“If you’re really big there are lots of challenges about driving that extent of cultural change,” Ball said. “The Big Four are spending a lot of money on AI, and they’ve got the resources and investment to do it, but they’ll have their own challenges for adoption, because they’re so big.”

The challenge comes with persuading vast numbers of people and different business units to change in step, he said.

Ball will become non-executive chair and director at start-up IntellixCore, which was co-founded former PwC senior partners Sultan Mahmood and Mike Greig. It aims to provide AI overhauls for the likes of professional services and private equity portfolio companies. The four-decade EY veteran will also join the board of Chicago-based private equity-backed AI consulting firm Quantum Rise.

Ball believes there will be “some job losses” as firms begin to use AI but employment will “quickly rebound”.

“You’ll go through a curve [of job losses and new hires] as people get to understand this new technology and how it can be used,” Ball added.

He argued that the UK needed to focus on AI adoption rather than trying to compete with the likes of Meta and OpenAI.

Accountancy and consultancy firms were central to the race, Ball said, making their own AI efforts “doubly important”.

“Physician, heal thyself. If you’re an accounting, consulting or professional services firm and you’re not doing the AI adoption yourself, it’s pretty tricky to go and tell someone else that this is really important,” he said.

IntellixCore last month it announced a partnership with top-10 firm RSM, which Ball said would “re-architect how a professional services firm actually operates”.