# KPMG bets big on AI with new incubator unit

> The accounting giant restructures to build AI-native businesses at start-up speed, installing a new executive who reports directly to the CEO.
- Title: KPMG bets big on AI with new incubator unit · Fortune
- Summary: The accounting giant restructures to build AI-native businesses at start-up speed, installing a new executive who reports directly to the CEO. KPMG created a…
- Keywords: kpmg, ai strategy, organizational restructuring, todd lohr, client technology and innovation, big four consulting, ai incubator, steve chase, tim walsh, ai hallucinations, bets, big
- Source: Fortune — https://fortune.com/2026/09/22/kpmg-ai-reorg-todd-lohr-steve-case-retirement
- Author: Nick Lichtenberg
- Read time: 2 min
- Topics: kpmg, ai strategy, organizational restructuring, todd lohr, client technology and innovation, big four consulting, ai incubator, steve chase, tim walsh, ai hallucinations
## KPMG folds AI into new unit
KPMG is creating a Client Technology and Innovation group, effective October first, to build AI-native businesses at start-up speed.
## New role reports to CEO
The group will be led by Todd Lohr, a fifteen-year KPMG veteran, who reports directly to CEO Tim Walsh, elevating AI strategy above the usual committee layers.
## Lohr pushed for this structure
Lohr told Fortune he had been pushing for years for a singular leader reporting directly to the CEO to drive transformative change at KPMG.

> a singular leader that reports directly to the CEO, which I do, because that is how we're going to drive the transformative change that is required at KPMG
## Steve Chase retires
The move coincides with Steve Chase, vice chair and global head of AI and Digital Innovation, retiring from KPMG on September thirtieth.
## Lohr's unusual path
Lohr, forty-nine, is an internal operator who co-founded Confiance, a financial-services consulting start-up, in two thousand eight before joining KPMG.

> not the best year to do a start-up
## Lohr built key partnerships
Lohr helped architect KPMG's alliance with Anthropic and now oversees relationships with Google Cloud, Microsoft, OpenAI and Databricks.
## Four pillars of CT&I
The new group owns products delivered to clients, new commercial structures, firm-wide AI strategy, and an internal venture studio incubating edge disruption plays.
## Lohr aims for a billion-dollar company
Lohr said he hopes a billion-dollar company emerges from the incubator, using Silicon Valley design principles to commercialize KPMG's internal ideas.

> I think KPMG and professional services in general have some of the greatest, we are a talent factory for most of the world on a lot of business skills. We have a lot of ideas. What we have not done is bring those ideas through commercial lens
## KPMG faces hallucination crisis
In June two thousand twenty-six, GPTZero found that KPMG's flagship report on agentic AI contained forty fabricated citations out of forty-five total.
## Big Four all affected
GPTZero founder Edward Tian documented the same pattern across all Big Four firms: EY, Deloitte Australia and PwC all published reports with widespread AI hallucinations.
## KPMG launches Hawk tool
KPMG recently launched Hawk, an AI tool that detects hallucinations in its content, mainly used by marketing to vet thought leadership pieces.
## Lohr stresses responsibility
Lohr warned that AI is awesome but also an awesome responsibility, saying KPMG's acceptable use policy stretches back a decade to his first AI work.

> AI is awesome, but it's also an awesome responsibility that everyone needs to own
## Key takeaway

KPMG created a new Client Technology and Innovation division led by Todd Lohr reporting to the CEO, signaling that AI strategy now sits at the firm's highest level.