PwC Belgium
FY24 Annual Report

We’ve been moving forward rapidly with AI adoption, both for clients and internally. FY24 saw our people leap forward in terms of (Gen)AI knowledge and training, with a number of mandatory training sessions completed to help people harness the full potential of this potent technology, while adhering to ethical and responsible practices. We’ve established an AI Knowledge Hub - a one-stop destination for AI learning and tools - and an AI Community of enthusiastic GenAI Champions to enable people to connect and share knowledge and experiences. We’re already well placed to help clients truly embrace the future of (Gen)AI.

The introduction of ChatPwC, a custom-built virtual assistant that’s capable of formatting data, writing code, summarising meetings and documents and writing emails offered our people secure and private domain access to OpenAI’s technology in an internal tool. It shows how we treat our firm as client zero, taking a hands-on approach to fine-tuning tools, frameworks and training programmes, which we can then put to the benefit of clients.

In May 2024, PwC Global signed an alliance agreement with OpenAI, making PwC OpenAI’s first reseller for ChatGPT Enterprise and the largest user of the product. This is the latest advancement of our firm’s investment in (gen)AI that will expand our technology ecosystem, bring (gen)AI deeper into our enterprise, and enable us to scale (gen)AI capabilities across businesses to help drive accelerated impact for clients.

Our partnership with MolenGeek, a tech ecosystem that seeks to make the technology sector accessible to everyone, has substantially expanded over the past two years and now sees us supporting the enterprise with a much broader range of services as well as a bespoke mentoring programme to support MolenGeek talents as they prepare for their entry to the job market. Our partnership fully supports our approach to corporate responsibility, a part of which is helping to decrease the digital divide.

In FY24, we sent out a call for people to register to become Sustainability Ambassadors for the firm, to listen to and learn from our community of solvers on what they expect from a firm like ours as well as discovering client concerns on the topic and sharing information internally. Twenty-nine people signed up and a launch meeting was held in May 2024 at which a wealth of ideas was shared with quick wins already being investigated and put into action where possible.

It was in 1998 that PwC first set foot in Ghent, with its offices rising from a greenfield shortly after the merger between Coopers & Lybrand and Price Waterhouse. A lot has happened since then: we’ve been able to build a sizeable practice – now in the Blue Towers with over 250 colleagues based there – and we can proudly say that we’re ideally placed to serve the needs of our people and clients in East and West Flanders, and beyond. To celebrate the occasion, we hosted an internal reception in November 2023.