We keep our ear to the ground for the interesting stats, insights and discussion points you need to feel in the know to shape the future with confidence this EY Alumni week.

1. Full circle

Careers have a funny way of circling back. EY alumni are leading companies, building startups, serving communities and, every so often, walking back through familiar doors with a whole new perspective. That matters more than ever. Around 15% of EY hires are returning employees, bringing experience gathered elsewhere alongside the trust that comes from shared history. As organizations scramble to keep pace with changing skills and faster transformation, alumni networks are becoming a living source of insight, opportunity and connection. One well-timed introduction from someone who knows the culture can surface talent that a thousand searches might miss.

In the age of AI, staying connected matters more than ever

2. Human after all

The next phase of AI looks surprisingly human. More than 50,000 AI agents were developed in nine months at EY. Impressive, yes. Yet the momentum came from something less flashy than the technology itself. As AI became part of everyday work, training, governance and shared ways of working moved up the priority list. After all, an AI agent can only move as fast as the people and processes around it…

How EY built an enterprise-scale agentic AI operating system

3. Trust fund

Most companies treat trust like oxygen: you don’t think much about it until it’s gone. But in a world of deepfakes, misinformation, AI anxiety and constant scrutiny, trust is starting to look a lot more like money in the bank. The companies with plenty of it can weather bad headlines, recover faster from mistakes and take bigger bets on what’s next. The ones running low often discover that every challenge becomes harder when nobody is willing to give you the benefit of the doubt.

How reframing trust allows firms to navigate change and unlock growth

4. Between the teams

The org chart may be AI’s biggest bottleneck. EY research found that 88% of employees use AI at work, while only 28% of organizations are positioned to turn that activity into business outcomes. Somewhere, value is getting lost. The culprit is often hiding in plain sight: approvals, handoffs and coordination across teams. In some organizations, as much as 75% of potential value sits trapped between functions. Value flows across the business, not down reporting lines. Growth targets have a habit of exposing every slow handoff and missed connection…

How agentic AI can help unlock enterprise value at scale

5. What are we missing?

For years, cybersecurity has been about protecting the assets organizations can’t afford to lose. The problem is that attackers rarely walk through the front door anymore. They’re finding overlooked systems, forgotten devices, third-party vendors and gaps that nobody realized were important until they were. As AI makes it easier to find and exploit weaknesses, organizations are discovering that resilience depends less on protecting a handful of critical assets and more on understanding everything else connected to them. Sometimes the biggest risk is the thing nobody thought to look at twice…

How can you redefine resilience for the next frontier of vulnerabilities?

If you do one thing:

Look beyond your current network. Which past connection could bring a fresh perspective today?