Accenture plans to invest $3 billion in AI over three years and double its AI staff to 80,000. Accenture His Group Technology Chief Executive Officer and Chief Technology Officer Paul Daugherty joins Yahoo Finance Live to discuss his company’s AI efforts.
video transcript
– Accenture Bet Big on Artificial Intelligence — The consulting giant announced this week that it will invest $3 billion over three years to double its AI-focused staff to 80,000. Joining us today is Accenture’s Chief Technology Officer, Paul Daugherty.
Paul, I’m glad you’re here today. Now let’s talk about this investment. What was the motivation behind that decision? Also, what kind of requests have you heard from your consulting clients about how to best prepare their people and operations for the adoption of AI? Do you have?
Paul Daugherty: Yes, thank you for letting me participate in the program. Accenture’s business is to use technology to help companies transform and reinvent. And as you say, no technology is getting more attention than generative AI right now.
We have been working in the field of artificial intelligence for many years and have significant business around it. But generative AI is actually a step change in functionality, enabling our companies and clients to do many new things. That’s what’s behind our investment.
Over the past two months, we’ve had over 500 client conversations about generative AI. Right now, it’s hard to have a conversation about anything without generative AI involved. And in those conversations, we hear not only what our clients are interested in, but also some of the challenges of implementing technology.
98% of executives say generative AI is important to their strategy. 51% believe this will be a major game changer for their company’s strategy. And 45% plan to spend significant budgets on it over the next two years. But they don’t know how to start. They are concerned about some risks. They need to consider how they can make their platform deployable.
And that’s why we’re making the $3 billion investment that we talked about earlier, which is a big investment for us. The investment will help companies adopt generative AI faster. So, as you said, we will double the data and AI experts from he 40,000 to he 80,000. Part of that is the Advanced AI Center, dedicated to generative AI, with 1,600 people focused on this part of the technology.
We are working on a new feature called AI Navigator for Enterprise. This feature breaks down the possibilities deeply into specific industry segments (19 industry segments) and considers where clients can get value, what kind of models they need and how. Get the data, how to develop a business case, and the process to adopt technology faster.
And finally, with regulation being one of the issues, investments focused on the area of responsible AI. Adopting technology comes with risks. I have hallucinations and other issues that need to be dealt with. Responsible AI is therefore very important as we enter the next phase of AI development.
Diane King Hall: Paul, Diane, I’m here. When it comes to responsible AI, one of the concerns about using generative AI is its potential impact on the workforce. Were there any such concerns? So you are investing in it. We are increasing our workforce. But that’s a concern outside of what you guys are doing. can you talk about that?
Paul Daugherty: Yes, we did our research and found that 40% of working hours across all industries and 40% of working hours are impacted by generative AI. But that doesn’t mean 40% of jobs will go away. All you have to do is consider how generative AI will be used.
So even if you belong to a customer support organization, you still have to answer the phone. But with generative AI, you can get better and deeper information to answer better calls, respond faster, and improve productivity and customer satisfaction. So, how do we combine copilot-type capabilities and generative AI with humans—a human-machine type approach—to improve productivity in that sense?
That’s the kind of impact we’re seeing. And we believe the secret is to take a hard look at your business, consider your processes, and invest in areas that help people do their jobs more effectively. And at the heart of it all, one of the things we’ve been talking to companies about is that the companies that are truly successful in applying this technology are probably investing more in people and the changes needed than in the generative AI technology itself. This means that we believe that we are a company that
– Paul, when do you think artificial intelligence will show up as some kind of input to the employment landscape?
Paul Daugherty: We believe generative AI for business has three general benefits: The first is productivity, which I talked about earlier. And getting people job-ready faster and using generative AI capabilities to supplement their skills so they can enter the workforce or acquire additional skills more quickly is very important. I think it has great potential. This is one of the things we are working on with our employees and it’s already happening.
The second area is using generative AI for growth to create jobs and other impacts. And this is an area of tremendous interest for companies looking to generative AI to develop new products and services. For example, media organizations looking to entirely new revenue streams and product classes that could be developed using generative AI that could not be developed before. Can’t do without it. We are looking for organizations that can help us develop better sales and marketing tools to grow our business more effectively.
– But does that mean we’ve reached a stage where we’re just pushing the prompts all the time and encouraging the production of something? Can it be replaced?
Paul Daugherty: Well, I think it goes far beyond prompts and prompt engineering. I think that is one factor. But what we actually see is that we are working with technology. It’s kind of enrichment, it allows people to do more, it gives them a customer service organization. Agents can handle more complex issues and answer them more effectively. So their skill level really improves and so does their ability to handle more complex cases.
In other words, it enhances human capabilities. And you’ll be able to learn new skills faster. And I think this kind of human-machine-additive effect is what we’re looking forward to more as we look to the development of generative AI.
– Paul, that’s really interesting stuff. Paul Daugherty, thank you very much for joining us today. Paul Daugherty explains how Accenture has recently invested in generative AI. appreciate.
