Accenture, a leading global technology consulting and solutions provider, on Tuesday announced a three-year, $3 billion investment plan to double the number of employees working in data and AI.
While there's been much discussion about AI's potential negative impact on the tech workforce, Accenture's announcement shows how new jobs could rapidly proliferate as emerging technologies boom. The company already boasts 40,000 AI professionals, and it wants to grow that number to 80,000 through a combination of hiring, acquisition and training.
Accenture, which reported fiscal 2022 revenue of $61.6 billion, has more than 1,400 pending and active AI patents and provides solutions to clients from marketing to retail, security to manufacturing. Its platforms include myWizard, SynOps and MyNav. The company said the $3 billion investment will be for assets, industry solutions, ventures, acquisitions, talent and ecosystem partnerships to support its AI capabilities.
“We are seeing unprecedented interest in all areas of AI, and our significant investments in our data and AI work are helping clients move from interest to action to value in a responsible way, driven by a clear business case,” said Julie Sweet, Accenture chairman and CEO, in a statement. “Now that the technology has matured and is delivering clear value, companies that build a strong AI foundation by adopting and extending AI will be well positioned to reinvent, compete and achieve new levels of performance.”
The company will also be releasing a new AI-based platform called “AI Navigator for Enterprise.”
“Over the next decade, AI will become a megatrend that will transform industries, businesses and the way we live and work. Generative AI will transform 40 percent of all workdays,” Paul Dougherty, group chief executive officer at Accenture Technology, said in a statement.
The company did not disclose when it plans to hire more AI talent. Accenture announced in March that it would cut about 19,000 jobs due to the current global economic situation. According to the company's statistics, the company currently has 738,000 employees worldwide. Latest Financial Report.
Accenture is the latest company to announce its intention to invest heavily in AI. Earlier this week, Salesforce doubled its capital fund for generative AI startups to $500 million and announced AI cloud services for enterprise customers.
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