EY Is Putting $100 Million Behind the Skills AI Can't Replace

Ernst & Young LLP, the US member firm of the Big Four network, said Monday it will spend $100 million this fiscal year on awards for employees who demonstrate business acumen, professional judgment and adaptability. The Wall Street Journal reported the story first, and the firm confirmed it in a press release the same morning.

The program replaces EY US's existing recognition scheme and raises the ceiling on individual awards substantially. Spot awards go up to $500. Larger cash prizes run from $10,000 to $25,000, roughly five times the previous maximum, according to coverage of the announcement. There is no annual cap on what one person can receive in total, and staff at any level can nominate colleagues.

What the money actually buys

EY has sorted the awards into three categories. "Everyday leadership" covers in-the-moment contributions to learning, experimentation and collaboration. "Transformation that drives measurable results" is for work that produces change through innovation, technology or growth. "Game-changing impact for the enterprise" is reserved for individuals or teams whose work has a lasting material effect on the firm.

Dante D'Egidio, EY Americas chief executive and US managing partner, said in the release that "the pace and complexity of change in our industry require confident leadership," and described the spending as a commitment to building the firm's future workforce. Ginnie Carlier, the Americas chief talent and culture officer, said the way a firm rewards its people defines what it values.

Several outlets framed the announcement as a counterweight to the industry's AI push. CBS News covered it as a bet on people skills. EY's own materials are less binary than that. The release says the program rewards technology adoption alongside everything else, and singles out professionals who use advanced tools to turn disruption into opportunity. Carlier has said the awards cover experimentation with AI as well as the human capabilities meant to sit beside it.

The pyramid is missing a floor

Big Four staffing has changed quickly over the past two years. An analysis by the Financial Times of more than 50,000 job listings from Deloitte, EY, KPMG and PwC found that AI roles made up close to 7% of postings last year while audit roles fell below 3%, the first time the firms have advertised more AI positions than audit ones. Computerworld and CEO Today both wrote up the finding in May.

Graduate intake has contracted alongside it. Accountancy Age reported that all four firms cut graduate hiring over a two-year stretch, with KPMG making the steepest reduction. TheStreet reported in April that KPMG would lay off about 10% of its US audit partners after voluntary retirements came in below target, and that the firm attributed the resulting redundancy to new AI audit tools. One analysis of the FT data set put entry-level openings across the four firms down 44% year over year in 2024, though that figure has not been independently confirmed.

Recruitment has not stopped. ICAEW noted in April that all four firms still planned to take on at least 1,000 junior staff this year, with EY expecting around 1,600. The change is in what those juniors do once they arrive. Reviewing large volumes of transactions was tedious work, and it was also the exercise that taught a graduate to recognize an anomaly. Software handles a good deal of it now, which leaves firms looking for another way to produce people capable of supervising the software.

Not just EY

KPMG restructured its audit internship curriculum this summer to put more weight on critical thinking and professional judgment, according to the Journal. PwC US introduced training earlier this year that pairs AI proficiency with a similar set of human capabilities.

EY announced its own version in mid-August. The EY Career Residency stretches the standard eight-week assurance internship into a paid position running eight to 12 months, overlapping with a student's senior year of college. Accounting Today covered the launch when it was announced. Residents who convert enter the firm as analysts rather than staff, a rung above the usual entry point, as Management Consulted noted in its breakdown for candidates. Writing in Forbes, Rachel Wells described the residency as EY's answer to the broken career rung at the bottom of professional services.

Carlier told Business Insider that EY had been considering changes to its internship model before generative AI took center stage, but that the technology acted as a catalyst. Applications open this fall and the first cohort starts in January 2028. The firm also says 95% of its partners have now completed in-person sessions on how AI reshapes business models and workflows.

Can you pay for judgment?

Not everyone thinks a bonus is the right instrument. David Grossman, a leadership communication consultant, put out a statement Monday arguing that a financial incentive assumes a motivation gap when the real constraint is permission and practice. His firm sells leadership consulting and he has a book out, so the argument is not disinterested, but it points at a familiar limitation. Recognition programs are good at surfacing behavior that already exists and less good at creating capability that does not.

Measurement is the other difficulty. Judgment and innovation are hard to observe directly and easy to award to whoever happens to be visible to partners, which is roughly how promotion politics already work at large firms. Allowing staff to nominate across ranks addresses part of the problem without solving it.

EY's fiscal year runs through June, leaving the program about ten months to distribute the money. The firm has described the awards as one piece of a multibillion-dollar effort covering hiring, training and career paths, and Carlier has characterized the work as a long-term undertaking rather than a single-year push.