Accenture (NYSE: ACN) announced a $3 billion investment in its Data & AI division over three years to help clients across all industries rapidly and safely progress and deploy AI to achieve better growth, efficiency, and resilience. According to Julie Sweet, chair and CEO of Accenture, “There is unprecedented interest in all aspects of AI, and the significant investment we are making in our Data & AI practice will enable our clients to get from curiosity to action to value, and in a responsible way with clear business cases.” Companies that adopt and scale AI now, when the technology is established and offers obvious benefits, will be better positioned to reinvent themselves, compete, and reach new performance levels. Our clients work in complicated environments, and at a time when technology is continually evolving, our deep expertise in ecosystem solutions allows us to assist them navigate quickly and cost-effectively to make sound decisions.”
The investment by Accenture expands on the company’s ten years of experience with artificial intelligence. The company’s AI expertise encompasses over 1,450 patents and pending patent applications worldwide, as well as hundreds of large-scale client solutions ranging from marketing to retail, security to manufacturing. Accenture has integrated AI into its service delivery methodology, resulting in increased efficiency, insights, and value for thousands of clients via market-leading platforms such as myWizard, SynOps, and MyNav. Six years ago, Accenture established its responsible AI architecture. It is now included in Accenture’s customer service processes, the business’s code of conduct, and the foundation of the organization’s strict responsible AI compliance program. Accenture is currently collaborating with a number of clients on generative AI initiatives, like assisting a hotel company in managing customer queries or assisting a judicial system in synthesizing judicial process knowledge across hundreds of thousands of complicated documents.
Accenture announced today a number of investments to assist firms in developing the new strategies, operating models, business cases, and digital core architecture required to leverage AI innovation:
Accenture will invest in assets, industry solutions, ventures, acquisitions, people, and ecosystem alliances to deepen and build new diagnostic, predictive, and generative AI skills and capabilities.
Through a combination of hiring, acquisitions, and training, the Data & AI practice will more than double its AI talent to 80,000 professionals.
The new AI Navigator for Enterprise is a generative AI-based platform that will assist clients in defining business cases, making decisions, navigating AI journeys, selecting architectures, and understanding algorithms and models in order to responsibly deliver value. The platform will feature assets geared to accelerate responsible AI practices and compliance processes, building on Accenture’s own work.
Accenture will develop data and AI preparation accelerators across 19 sectors, as well as pre-built industry and functional models that use new generative AI capabilities.
The Center for Advanced AI at Accenture is committed to maximising this technology’s value for clients and within Accenture in order to improve generative AI applications. In-depth research and development are part of this, as are investments in reinventing service delivery using generative and other forthcoming AI capabilities.
Accenture will invest in new and current collaborations across its industry-leading cloud, data, and artificial intelligence ecosystems to reimagine the sort of work delivered to customers. Developers employ pre-built models to improve prototyping, for example, or makers create dynamic virtual environments that can respond to real-world changes.
“As 40% of all working hours are transformed by generative AI over the course of the next ten years, AI will be a mega-trend that affects businesses, industries, and how people live and work,” said Paul Daugherty, Accenture Technology’s group chief executive. “Our expanded Data & AI practice brings together Accenture’s full power and breadth in creating industry-specific solutions that will help our clients harness AI’s full potential to reshape their strategy, technology, and ways of working, responsibly driving innovation and value.”