Dive Brief:
- Accenture is seeing a shift from generative AI enthusiasm to use-case implementation, CEO Julie Sweet said Tuesday, during a Q1 2024 earnings call for the three-month period ending Nov. 30.
- The IT and professional services company booked $450 million in AI business during the quarter, a 50% boost over the segment’s $300 million in revenues for the entire previous fiscal year, said Sweet.
- “2023 was a year of generative AI experimentation,” Sweet said. “We are now focusing on helping our clients in 2024 realize value at scale.”
Dive Insight:
Generative AI projects are still only a fraction of Accenture’s overall business. The firm added $18.4 billion in bookings during the quarter — $8.6 billion in consulting and $9.8 billion in managed services.
Digital transformation remained an enterprise priority, despite continued caution around discretionary spend, Sweet said, as customers adopted cloud and moved to enhance data, platform and security capabilities.
“Clients are continuing to prioritize the digital core as evidenced by strong demand for cloud migration,” said Sweet, pointing to the firm’s expansion of its partnership with McDonald’s, announced Tuesday. The fast-food giant tapped Google Cloud to deploy distributed cloud services in thousands of its restaurants earlier this month.
“This new work supports McDonald's ambition to connect restaurants worldwide with cloud technology and apply generative AI solutions across McDonald's platforms,” Sweet said.
Most companies, however, lack the data maturity to fully implement AI, Sweet told the Financial Times Tuesday.
To lay the ground work for generative AI adoption, CIOs are focused on data systems improvements, according to an October MIT Technology Review report commissioned by Databricks.
“Data readiness, along with foundation model choices and customization are some of the most important steps and decisions that companies will make in the next year as they pursue value,” Sweet said during the earnings call.
