EY revenue hits USD $57 billion as AI demand surges

EY reported global revenue of USD $57 billion for its 2026 financial year, up 4.7% in local currency from the previous year.

Revenue grew across all service lines and regions as the professional services firm expanded both its core audit and tax work and its AI-related business. Over the past five years, EY's compound annual growth rate was 8.3%.

Its strategy and transactions arm, EY-Parthenon, recorded the fastest growth among the group's main businesses, with revenue rising 7.4% in local currency to USD $6.8 billion. Tax revenue increased 6.0% to USD $13.8 billion, consulting rose 4.4% to USD $17.4 billion, and assurance grew 3.0% to USD $18.9 billion.

The figures highlight how large advisory and accounting groups are trying to turn demand for AI projects into a broader stream of transformation work while maintaining growth in long-established services such as audit and tax.

EY said revenue from AI services increased 49% during the year as clients moved projects beyond early-stage trials into wider business use. Clients were redesigning operations around the technology rather than treating it as a standalone experiment, the firm said.

"Clients are moving from experimenting with AI to redesigning how their businesses operate. Growth in demand for AI-related services reflects that shift, as organizations increasingly prioritize approaches that combine technology with deep industry knowledge, trusted relationships and human judgement. This fiscal year's results demonstrate the strength of bringing EY teams and alliance partners together to accelerate value creation and turn disruption into sustained growth," said Janet Truncale, Global Chair and Chief Executive Officer, EY.

AI rollout

Internally, EY also expanded its use of AI tools across its workforce. By the end of the financial year, 203,000 employees held Microsoft Copilot licences, and that figure has since risen to 381,000.

Agentic AI is being introduced into internal workflows and client services, while EY's Responsible AI framework remains the basis for how those tools are bought and deployed. The firm continues to invest in AI-ready data, governance frameworks, and newer fields including physical AI and quantum computing.

In assurance, EY continued a multiyear overhaul of audit services, including the global rollout of enterprise-scale agentic AI. It said 130,000 assurance professionals now use AI tools as part of its wider investment in audit quality, technology, and staff.

Alliance growth

Partnerships with technology companies remain central to that strategy. EY now has 119 active alliance or ecosystem relationships and has used those ties to develop AI-based platforms, solutions, and delivery models.

Over the past decade, revenue linked to alliance partners has grown at a compound annual growth rate of 34%, according to EY. The firm also said it had secured access to leading frontier AI models through Copilot and expanded its work with partners in areas including AI-ready data, agentic AI, physical AI, and business transformation.

EY was named NVIDIA's Global System Integrator Tech Innovation Partner of the Year in the financial year. It also highlighted a USD $1 billion initiative with Microsoft intended to help clients adopt AI through joint work by Microsoft engineers and EY industry specialists.

Workforce investment

EY spent USD $448 million on training and development during the year, including programmes focused on AI, leadership, and other technical skills. Employees completed 5.2 million hours of formal AI-related learning and earned more than 40,000 AI learning accreditations through the EY Badges scheme, with another 104,000 underway.

Across all training areas, EY staff completed 26.6 million hours of formal learning, up from 24.6 million in the previous year. The firm also said it has the fastest-growing AI-skilled population across the combined enterprise customer bases of Coursera and Udemy.

Social measures

Alongside its financial results, EY published an annual report covering performance related to clients, employees, and society. The firm said its EY Ripples social impact programme has reached more than 300 million lives since launch, including about 56.6 million in the latest year.

Its AI for Good programme has reached more than 25 million people globally since 2023 through projects focused on AI skills, education, entrepreneurship, and environmental challenges, according to EY.

On its own environmental footprint, EY said total market-based greenhouse gas emissions have fallen 40% since 2019. It added that emissions intensity per dollar of revenue has dropped 62%, emissions per person have fallen 58%, and all electricity consumed was matched with renewable energy resources.