Accenture invests $3 billion into artificial intelligence
Accenture on Tuesday announced it will invest $3 billion over three years into its data and AI practice.
The global management and technology consultancy will use the money in various areas to help clients implement diagnostic, predictive, and generative AI solutions.
Accenture will double the size of its data and AI practice to 80,000 professionals via hiring, acquisitions, and training.
The Dublin-based firm will also invest in “assets, industry solutions, ventures, acquisitions, talent, and ecosystem partnerships,” it said in a press release.
Accenture also announced the launch of AI Navigator for Enterprise, a generative AI-based tool to help clients define business cases, choose architectures, understand pertinent algorithms and models, and understand responsible AI practices and compliance requirements.
The firm will further create data and AI accelerators for 19 different industries, featuring pre-built industry and functional models that leverage generative AI.
Accenture’s Center for Advanced AI, meanwhile, will receive increased R&D investments to “reimagine service delivery.”
Finally, the firm will use some of the $3 billion to invest in new and existing relationships across its cloud, data, and AI partner ecosystems.
The hefty investment builds upon the firm’s more than 10-year journey in AI, which has generated 1,450+ patents and pending patent applications, as well as hundreds of client solutions at scale.
Accenture is currently supporting various clients with AI projects, including helping a hotel group better manage customer queries or helping a judicial system synthesize judicial process information across thousands of documents.
“Over the next decade, AI will be a mega-trend, transforming industries, companies, and the way we live and work, as generative AI transforms 40% of all working hours,” said Paul Daugherty, group chief executive, Accenture Technology. “Our expanded Data & AI practice brings together the full power and breadth of Accenture in creating industry-specific solutions that will help our clients harness AI’s full potential to reshape their strategy, technology, and ways of working, driving innovation and value responsibly and faster than ever before.”
Numerous consulting firms are rushing to expand their AI capabilities and partnerships. Bain & Company in February announced a services alliance with Open AI, while PwC US in April said it would invest $1 billion over the next three years to scale its generative AI capabilities.
