Accenture (ACN) CEO Julie Sweet made it clear on the company’s fiscal Q3 earnings call last month that the professional services firm was going all-in on AI consulting.
In order to meet the growing demand for AI consulting services, she said the company would be consolidating its strategy, consulting, song, technology, and operations services into a single unit known as "reinvention services."
The reorganization will be completed on September 1.
"What we're going to do now is make it even easier to bring those solutions, embed data and AI, so we can really scale across our client base and into new markets using our reinvention services," Sweet told CNBC in June.
The pivot would seem to make sense because Accenture had warned in its previous earnings call that the cuts made by Elon Musk’s DOGE initiative would lead to delayed or canceled contracts with the federal government.
Its overall bookings were down 6% in the third quarter.
The firm has made an aggressive push into AI services so far in the current quarter, showing that it isn’t waiting for its reorg this September.
Accenture announced last week that it had acquired Dresden, Germany-based SYSTEMA, a provider of software solutions and consulting services for manufacturing automation.
Crucially, SYSTEMA has extensive experience providing consulting services to semiconductor manufacturers, which gives Accenture a foothold in this sector.
“Today’s society relies heavily on semiconductors for everything from smartphones to cars, and there is a strong commitment in Europe to strengthen the industry’s manufacturing capabilities,” Christina Raab, market unit lead for Accenture in Austria, Switzerland and Germany, said in a statement. “The production of semiconductors is complex and highly specialized, and SYSTEMA’s deep expertise in the industry will expand our capabilities and grow our business in ways we couldn’t achieve organically.”
And while the company may have lost some of its contracts as a result of the DOGE cuts, it’s still landing work with the U.S. government.
Preparing for AI consulting boom
In fact, its subsidiary Accenture Federal Services is teaming up with Palantir (PLTR) to deploy commercial-grade, AI-powered solutions that are aimed at addressing federal agencies’ highest priority operational challenges.
The two companies recently announced that they will be training Accenture Federal’s Data & AI team on Palantir Foundry and Artificial Intelligence Platform (AIP) in order to establish a joint delivery of cutting-edge automation for the federal government.
Sweet told Bloomberg last month that Accenture is training 500,000 of its employees to use generative artificial intelligence in order to meet what it expects to be a growing demand for AI consulting work.
Joel Litman, chief investment strategist for Altimetry, sees this as a smart move for Accenture, comparing the AI boom to the internet boom in the ‘90s.
He points out that just as every company – from the biggest to the smallest – eventually needed to have some sort of online presence in the age of the internet, companies will also have to eventually start incorporating AI.
“As companies start moving towards AI, just like they moved toward the internet, they’re going to need consultants to help them do it,” Litman said, noting how a lot of companies don’t have the AI expertise in-house.
He added that consulting firms have historically made billions from tech shifts as their billable hours skyrocket.
Accenture is one of the only major professional services companies that is publicly traded, with rivals like Deloitte, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) and Ernst & Young all privately held.
Its stock is down 14.6% YTD.
Your email address will not be published. Required fields are markedmarked