Seeing around corners with neurosymbolic AI (NSAI)

As artificial intelligence (AI) continues to dominate headlines with breakthroughs in deep learning and generative models, the limitations of purely data-driven approaches are becoming increasingly clear. Today’s AI systems excel at pattern recognition, but often struggle with reasoning, transparency and adaptability in dynamic environments.  

What is neurosymbolic AI? 

Neurosymbolic AI (NSAI) is an approach that combines: 

• Neural network machine learning (identifies and derives patterns from data). 
• Symbolic reasoning (which uses rules and logic).  

This makes the NSAI model both smart and explainable, as they can learn like traditional AI, but also reason and justify decisions clearly. 

NSAI creates systems capable of not only predicting outcomes, but also explaining why they happen, effectively thinking more like a human. For executive decision-making, this represents a critical step forward, moving leaders from correlation (“what happened?”) to causation (“why did it happen?”). This enables more informed, strategic decisions in an era of complexity.

How neurosymbolic AI can empower executive decisions

NSAI is designed for CEOs, business owners and executive decision-makers as a reasoning system that connects business strategy, financial performance and operations into one integrated view. It empowers leaders to effectively “see around corners,” turning uncertainty into strategic advantage. With NSAI, leaders no longer rely on hindsight. They can act with foresight, helping to turn uncertainty into strategic advantage.

Neurosymbolic AI delivers a new class of intelligent systems that go beyond prediction to provide clarity and control. This shift unlocks a range of strategic benefits for organisations, including:

• Explainable decisions: NSAI provides clear, auditable reasoning for every recommendation, making it easier to justify actions to boards, regulators and stakeholders.
• Strategic foresight: Leaders can move from reactive management to proactive foresight, uncovering hidden patterns of value and accelerating transformation ahead of competitors. 
• Causal insights: NSAI uncovers the drivers behind performance changes, helping leaders understand the “why”. 
• Integrated intelligence: NSAI connects insights and decisions directly to revenue, margin and enterprise value.
• Resilience through localisation: NSAI enables leaders to reason across complex, interconnected variables, demand signals, logistics, regulatory environments and workforce dynamics, revealing which localisation decisions create growth.

NSAI in action: Transforming enterprise workflows

In NSAI, a workflow is a proprietary, purpose-built application designed to unlock growth across every component of a company’s commercial model — the levers that determine how a business creates revenue.

These workflows target the core levers of value creation: forecasting, pricing and tariffs, new product and service development, market entry, mergers and acquisitions, new ventures, and portfolio optimisation.

NSAI workflows go beyond traditional automation. They integrate data, causal reasoning and execution to drive structural transformation. They don’t just improve efficiency, they identify hidden concentrations of value, map the causal dynamics and design targeted interventions that shift value into higher-return flows.

Because workflows are auditable and continuously adaptive, they not only capture value once, but sustain and compound it over time.

The result is not incremental efficiency, it is a step-change in enterprise performance. NSAI workflows redefine pricing power, margin structure, risk resilience and long-term growth trajectories, directly influencing market capitalisation and enterprise value.

NSAI is built for an enterprise’s most important and complex strategic questions, including:

• Where to localise operations to maximise growth and resilience?
• Which signals most accurately predict long-term market shifts?
• How to time innovation and investment decisions for outsized impact?
• What leadership capabilities and organisational designs sustain transformation?

Leaders must decide whether to build or partner for neurosymbolic AI adoption  

As leaders recognise the transformative potential of NSAI, a pivotal decision emerges, should you build your own capability internally or partner with an external provider to access it immediately? 

Building NSAI internally 

If you’re considering developing a NSAI capability in-house, there are number of important considerations:  

• Data infrastructure: You’ll need robust systems to collect, integrate and manage diverse data sources ─ internal, external and unstructured. 
• Reasoning models: Building NSAI requires expertise in both neural network machine learning and symbolic logic, plus the ability to design causal engines that explain the “why” as well as “what.” 
• Governance frameworks: Ensure transparency, auditability and compliance by embedding governance and ethical rules directly into AI workflows. 
• Talent and resources: Success depends on a multidisciplinary team from AI engineers, data scientists, domain experts to business strategists. 
• Time and commitment: Internal development is ambitious and requires sustained investment, ongoing adaptation and alignment with business strategy. 
   

Partnering for NSAI 

Choosing to partner with an organisation which has NSAI capabilities will provide immediate access to enterprise-grade capabilities without the delay and complexity of building in-house. Partnering can deliver: 

• Speed to value: Deploy NSAI rapidly, leveraging proven platforms and frameworks. 
• Executive-ready insights: Access reasoning systems designed for CEOs and business leaders, not just analytics teams. 
• Integrated intelligence: Benefit from platforms which combine client data, external market signals, curated knowledge assets and human expertise. 
• Scalable workflows: Use purpose-built applications for forecasting, pricing, market entry, M&A, to drive transformation across your commercial model. 
• Transparency and governance: Rely on auditable decision records, scenario simulations and prescriptive recommendations, all engineered for enterprise transparency and compliance. 
• Strategic partnership: Tap into domain support, ensuring your NSAI deployment delivers sustainable results.

Neurosymbolic AI adoption

The decision to build or partner for NSAI depends on your organisation’s strategic priorities, resources and appetite for innovation. If your focus is on maintaining control, achieving customisation and developing long-term internal capabilities, building NSAI in-house may be the right choice. On the other hand, if speed, scalability and immediate impact are essential, partnering provides a fast track to NSAI-enabled growth. 

About the authors

GenAI was used to develop an iteration of this article. In accordance with EY editorial guidelines, the end product was reviewed and edited by EY professionals before publication.