AI Innovation at BDO 

Purpose Driven, Human-Centered, Responsibly Built

Unlocking Value in the Everyday 

We believe some of the most powerful ideas and solutions are ones that can be leveraged today to improve workflows, generate insights, and elevate teaming and collaboration. That is why our approach to AI centers on enhancing the capabilities and capacity of our professionals in a way that augments their day-to-day work experience, enhancing their productivity and unlocking their potential.  

While we focus on giving our professionals practical solutions that provide immediate impact, we are also exploring bold, strategic moves that push the boundaries of what we can do for our people, our clients and our profession. Staying true to our core purpose, collaboration, curiosity, and responsible experimentation are critical to our approach. We aim to be the best by carefully laying the foundation for ideas that will build resilient businesses and improve the lives of all stakeholders.  

As AI transforms service delivery within our profession, we remain committed to transparency, privacy, compliance, and ethics in AI usage. 

People First

We pursue solutions that enhance human capabilities ― never supplanting them. 

Everyday Innovation

We focus on practical use cases purpose-built to augment the day-to-day needs of the people using it. 

Responsible Use

Our profession is built on trust. Our stakeholders must have confidence in the technology we’re using and our approach to using it. 

Strategic Resilience

Our AI strategy intends to build a sustainable and resilient future that harmonizes people, purpose, and performance.  

Thriving With AI

At BDO, we’re focused on practical AI use cases that empower our professionals to work smarter, faster, and more strategically. From tax delivery enhancements to better client service, our proprietary AI and AI-enabled platforms unlock efficiency across our firm, enabling our professionals across the breadth of their work.

Discover how BDO leverages cutting-edge solutions, including Agentic AI, to drive AI innovation.

Chat BDO is BDO's internal generative AI platform developed in collaboration with Microsoft. It’s designed to enhance productivity and innovation within the firm by providing a secure and customized version of ChatGPT tailored to BDO’s specific needs.

As Chat BDO scales, professionals are able to create and interact with various “personas,” which are virtual assistants designed to assist with BDO-related topics and processes. With 12,000 total users, Chat BDO has transformed the way we work at BDO. Since its inception, it significantly optimized workflows, helping our professionals save more than 1 million hours of time, allowing for more time spent on strategic tasks and priorities.

"Chat BDO’s AI personas are like having quick access to expert helpers. They make it easy to handle processes and get insights that fit our needs. They’ve helped us get things done faster and better so we can focus on more important work."

–Joanna Weststrate, AI Change Strategy Lead

Initially an idea from BDO’s Marketing & Communications department, BDO’s Consultative Selling Persona leverages multiple AI agents to give our professionals on-demand access to deep company intelligence, industry trends, and market and regulatory activities in a comprehensive report. With these immediate insights, BDO professionals save hours, even days, giving our teams more bandwidth to focus on ways to address the challenges our clients are facing daily.

Within the first year of implementation, BDO professionals initiated approximately 35,000 insights chats—unlocking new opportunities and helping clients address challenges faster and more strategically.

The Consultative Selling Persona saves us critical time by gathering information so we can focus on ways BDO can address our clients’ challenges. This ensures we deliver a unified approach that includes strategic insights and financial solutions.

–Mitzi Loveless, Business Development Director

BDO Tax UserVerse combines data, project management, scheduling, and analytics into one cohesive platform within Microsoft Dynamics 365. In addition to streamlining processes and enhancing efficiency, it enables BDO tax professionals to fully leverage Microsoft's AI within BDO’s core technologies.

With BDO Tax UserVerse, BDO’s tax professionals have access to: 
  • Cutting-edge tax tools, resources, and data analytics capabilities that unlock smarter analysis 
  • Real-time collaboration, tracking, and management of tax-related tasks across different teams and locations 
  • Enhanced insights and technology in a single, user-friendly interface 
The result is an innovative platform that fortifies BDO’s market prominence. Within the first year of launching BDO Tax UserVerse, the time required to complete a tax workflow has reduced by 10-20%.

"BDO Tax UserVerse makes managing tax processes easier and keeps everything centralized. We can track tasks efficiently and work more effectively as a team, which helps us to deliver even better service to our clients."

–Esayas Messele, Tax Practice Leader

Learn More about BDO Tax UserVerse 

Technology is changing how we perform audits and the value we deliver. BDOADVANTAGE, our digital audit suite, integrates leading-edge technologies like predictive analytics, artificial intelligence, and robotic process automation to streamline the client experience and harness clients’ data in new ways.

Our analytics engines make it possible to perform rigorous data analysis on the most complex data sets to provide insights throughout the audit, resulting in a more thorough understanding of our clients’ businesses and a higher quality audit.

"Advances in technology are requiring more of the profession than ever before. Today’s audits demand synergy between skilled, curious professionals and advanced technologies, such as AI. By harnessing both, we can successfully address client challenges in this rapidly changing environment to power a seamless experience, without losing sight of what’s most important — maintaining audit quality."

–Tara Pendleton, Assurance Principal

Learn More about Audit Innovation 

How BDO’s AI Solutions Can Support Client Success

Spotlight: BDO’s Intelligent Virtual Assistant

As leaders seek to harness the power of Generative AI, BDO offers options that enhance productivity while safeguarding data. BDO’s Intelligent Virtual Assistant (IVA) supports a secure, customized ChatGPT environment hosted within a client’s Microsoft Azure environment. This setup helps provide control, mitigate data breach risk, and prevent data from being used to train external AI models. BDO IVA also works alongside Microsoft 365 Copilot, designed to improve productivity and optimize operations within familiar Microsoft applications. BDO's experience in implementing IVA and Copilot enhances your approach to secure AI integration, empowering your operations with AI-driven insights and automation. 


"IVA has been a huge help for our clients by providing them with quick access to generative AI in a secure, user-friendly way."

–Sean Ahmadinejad, Principal - BDO Digital - Data & AI

Learn How IVA Can Help Your Business

Responsible AI Policy

BDO aims to foster trust and confidence among its stakeholders, safeguard security, and contribute to the positive impact of AI on its personnel, clients and communities. 

BDO has adopted a Responsible AI Policy comprised of seven Responsible AI Principles aimed at emphasizing the ethical, governance and security safeguards that are vital for BDO to manage the risks and capture the benefits associated with the design and application of AI technologies.

Learn more about the Responsible AI Principles we have adopted: 

Microsoft logoWe partner with Microsoft to power our AI journey and yours.

BDO works closely with Microsoft to bring cutting-edge, industry-standard technology solutions to our clients, helping to drive innovation, performance, security, and value for your business. Recognized as 2024 Microsoft Partner of the Year for Secure Productivity and SMC-SI Empowering Customer Innovation, BDO has the experience needed to help your business unlock the next phase of your AI journey.  

Leadership Roundtable

Firm leaders share our approach to AI – how it builds on our culture of innovation to enhance the capabilities of our professionals and deliver exceptional value for our clients.

Meet Our Meet Our Chief Data & AI Officer

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