KPMG rolls out workplace AI platform for consultants

KPMG has announced the roll-out of a workplace AI platform for its consultants, through a new partnership with British AI firm, Aiimi. The firm says it hopes to provide consultants with instant access to insights while working with clients, while enabling wider AI adoption across its operations.

Aiimi is an AI and data insights specialist, which works to help enterprises to unlock efficiencies, spot opportunities, de-risk their operations, and adopt AI at scale. The firm deploys AI to help teams to find, govern, and unlock the value stored in their enterprise data, empowering companies to safely operationalise AI and tackle their biggest challenges.

Among the organisations relying on its technology in the UK are the Financial Conduct Authority, the UK Government, various FTSE 100 companies, and PwC. Joining that list now is another consulting giant, fellow Big Four member KPMG, which is teaming up with Aiimi, to roll out a Workplace AI platform.

By managing sensitive information and unlocking valuable insights stored across KPMG’s vast digital estate, the firm hopes the AI-powered tool will enhance its ability to govern data at scale and drive AI adoption.

Chris Allen, KPMG UK’s chief data officer, commented, “To have trust in AI outputs you must first have trust in your underlying data. The Aiimi platform gives us that trust. It helps us better understand what data we have across the estate. If data has limited value and there’s no regulatory requirement to retain it; we delete it. If it’s something we want to keep then Aiimi helps us to intelligently classify that data, tag it in-situ and make it available to downstream AI applications in a way which respects retention rules, access controls, and the contractual obligations we have to our clients and audited entities.”

Founder and CEO Steve Salvin has bootstrapped and quietly scaled Aiimi since its launch in 2007, and grown the company to 8-figure revenues.

Salvin added, “KPMG is one of the largest professional services firms in the world with data and AI ambitions to match. Our job is to help the Big Four firm realise these ambitions. The complex regulatory landscape and data estate KPMG operates within is where Aiimi thrives - something the pilot proved when it put our Workplace AI platform through its paces. Now, our team is looking forward to working alongside KPMG and putting the platform to work. The opportunities this challenge offers is what makes it exciting.”

Aiimi has also regularly sought to distance itself from the wider hype cycle relating to AI. Last year, this even saw Paul Maker, its chief technology officer, condemn “slop” in a guest piece for Raconteur.

“As adoption becomes more widespread, we’re likely to see brands churn out more AI slop,” Maker noted. “But the future is not without hope. If businesses can learn from their peers’ mistakes and apply AI in the right way, they’ll have an opportunity to enhance their offering, rather than become an example of bad use cases.”

Looking ahead, the next phase of the three-year relationship between the company and KPMG will see Aiimi’s specialist consultants and Workplace AI platform focus on bringing together, classifying, and refining KPMG’s complex data estate, to try and actually deliver on the technology’s many promises. Beyond this, the platform will also try to help build the solid data foundations required to safely and successfully implement new AI solutions.