SAN FRANCISCO, Nov 20 Reuters KPMG said on Wednesday it would spend 100 million over the next four years to bolster its enterprise artificial intelligence services through a partnership with Alphabet39;s Google Cloud.

Part of the money will be spent on payments directly to Google, though the majority will be spent on inhouse efforts that leverage Google39;s products, Steve Chase, vice chair of AI and innovation for KPMG, told Reuters in an interview. That includes developing AI agents and training the firm39;s workforce to become proficient with the technology.

While Wall Street waits on the technology industry to demonstrate returns commensurate with the billions in capital expenditure it is pouring into AI, professional services providers have become one of the first business beneficiaries of the technology as large businesses tap accounting and consulting firms for help on implementing AI inside their companies and product offerings.

We strongly are in the camp that it is moving from proof of concept and experimentation to scaling, Chase said. We believe that professional services is going through the largest transformation that it will likely ever go through.

He cited a KPMG poll of business leaders, which found that about 50 of surveyed organizations planned to spend 100 million on AI initiatives over the next 12 months, and about 20 planned to spend at least 250 million.

Bookings for KPMG39;s Google Cloudrelated services have grown 10fold over the last two…