ai-pocalypse AI has proven to be a gold mine at Mega Tech Consultancy Accenture, but if staff can't use it, it's time to clean up the desk.
In its results for the 2025 fiscal year ended August 31, the consultant shop said it is investing in staff training to speed up its employees. However, if they are in a role that cannot be augmented by AI and learn new skills, the exit door is open for them. It's all tied to a broader business reoptimization strategy, with a one-off fee of $865 million over two-quarters of a period.
“We are investing our main strategy, Renventors, in upskilling,” CEO Julie Sweet said in analyst's call. [PDF]. “We finish with a compressed timeline. This is not a viable path to the skills that are needed by those who need reskills based on our experience.”
Then, in response to a question about business optimization planning, Sweet stated: “Our number one strategy is, given the skills needed, and upskills, we have a lot of experience in a very compressed timeline.
Overall, she said Accenture is increasing recruitment worldwide for people with the skillset they need. She claimed that Accenture has 77,000 trained AI professionals on her staff, starting from 40,000 in 2023, along with 550,000 workers with basic knowledge of technology.
That said, Accenture makes serious money selling AI consulting services to its customers. Following its plans to invest heavily in AI in 2023, revenue from Genai and Agentic AI tripled to $2.7 billion from last year, with bookings nearly doubled to $5.9 billion.
One area in which the company is hurting is with the US government contract. Procurement from the government will drop out after the new administration enacted cost cuts, which could damage the company's revenues, but the contract is beginning to be taken up, and the company's partnership with Palantir looks fruitful.
Regarding future changes to the H-1B Tech Visa scheme, Sweet said the company is in a good position. Approximately 5% of US staff use H-1B visas, and apart from major changes in government policies, Accenture does not expect any issues.
Overall, it wasn't a bad year for a tech consulting company. Revenues increased 7% that year to $69.7 billion, while net profit rose more than 5% to $7.8 billion.
