Deloitte Australia rolls out GenAI platform to all staff

17 June 2024: Starting today, Deloitte Australia is rolling out its MyAssist GenAI platform to its workforce of 13,000 people.

Deloitte Australia CEO, Adam Powick, said: “Generative AI is the most important business productivity tool we have seen for many years, and at Deloitte we are committed to upskilling and equipping everyone in our organisation to use generative AI to improve the speed and quality of work outcomes. MyAssist is a sophisticated and secure generative AI platform which provides users with access to a number of different models and applications supporting common tasks like information research, analysis and evaluation, data handling and code development and testing. 

“We want to be leaders in the impactful and responsible use of artificial intelligence and we see the rollout of our MyAssist platform as an important step in this journey.”

The roll out of MyAssist follows more than a year of development of the platform and numerous GenAI enabled apps. The development of MyAssist provided valuable insights into the way different parts of the business use generative AI.  The most significant insight was the extent to which people use generative AI to perform common tasks and activities across the diverse functions of the firm.

A trial of around 1,300 users found that a core set of common tasks can account for up to 50% of the work time of some users, and it is these tasks that the MyAssist platform has been optimised to support.  As part of this trial, 70% of users reported the new platform meaningfully improved overall work productivity and 65% reported an improvement in work quality.

Deloitte Australia National GenAI Lead Stu Scotis said: “Developing this platform showed us that we are more alike than we first thought. We have a diverse business but we also know there are common activities embeded across really diverse functions. We wanted to develop a platform that helped all of our teams, so we focussed on these common activities first. This means we do not need to solve for each activity in isolation and instead we can scale solutions to provide quality outcomes for our clients and our people.

“Tech does not need to be big and complex, finding solutions for small and simple tasks repeated regularly can have an enormous impact. Our Generation AI report found more than a quarter of the Australian economy will be rapidly and significantly disrupted by GenAI which equates to approximately $600 billion of economic activity, so the impact of this technology can’t be understated. 

“We also know that human intelligence won’t be fully replaced by GenAI, but the ability for the completion of tasks to be accelerated by people who understand how to use GenAI tools effectively is significant. Our focus in the first release of MyAssist has been on augmenting the work of our people so they can spend more time operating at the top of their skill set.”

MyAssist is designed to be scaled through the creation of GenAI enabled apps that address specific business problems. For example, users can develop personal productivity apps that help them complete multiple related tasks. Today, the platform offers apps that are optimised for various tasks such as research, content drafting and code development, in addition to general and document chat capabilities.

The functionality in MyAssist builds on the capability and learnings from around the global Deloitte network and extends it for the Australian market, in line with Australian regulations and safe and responsible usage guidelines as well as Deloitte security & privacy policies.

Other home grown platforms already in use at Deloitte include SustainNext which uses GenAI to simplify the complex process of diagnosing and reviewing environmental, social and governance (ESG) reporting against regulatory reporting standards but MyAssist is a game changer enabling the entire firm in  day to day activities.

Deloitte Australia AI Institute Lead Dr Kellie Nuttall said: “GenAI is restructuring the way we work by reducing administrative burdens and allowing resources to be reinvested into higher value activities. Businesses must continue to empower employees to fully adopt GenAI.

“Our strategy is to be an AI-fuelled organisation. In the past 12 months more than 5,000 of our people have undertaken GenAI training and I’m excited to see what they will be able to achieve using MyAssist.”

Globally Deloitte’s AI practice is a network of 40,000 professionals including over 500 in Australia and the firm has longstanding strategic alliances with Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud Services and NVIDIA (Partner of the Year four years running). Deloitte’s global AI alliance network now also includes infrastructure partnerships and a range of emerging generative AI vendors

The firm’s global AI Institute is one of the world’s largest AI research & innovation organisations, pushing boundaries on AI research and development.

Deloitte continues to expand its global GenAI Incubator network allowing clients to experiment, innovate and deliver value with GenAI technology, and to develop, deploy, and scale solutions in their local markets. Already more than 700 GenAI projects have been delivered including for Australian clients across a wide range of sectors.