Dive Brief:
- Generative AI continues to drive large-scale digital transformation, as enterprises modernize and build out data infrastructure to support the technology, Accenture Chair and CEO Julie Sweet said Thursday, speaking during the company’s Q1 2025 earnings call.
- The IT services firm booked $18.7 billion in new business, including $1.2 billion attributed to generative AI, during the three-month period ending Nov. 30. Revenues increased 9% year over year to $17.7 billion, split almost evenly between $9 billion in consulting and $8.6 billion in managed services, the company said.
- “Our clients are focused on reinvention, which means large scale transformation,” Sweet said. “We do not currently see an improvement in overall spending by our clients, particularly on smaller deals.”
Dive Insight:
Companies are shifting IT investments to areas that will help them scale AI without ballooning budgets. As the spending trend coalesced over the last year, Accenture adapted its business strategy.
“When we saw the constrained spending, particularly on the smaller deals, we pivoted to really focus on winning more reinvention partners of choice,” Sweet said.
Analysts expect growth in the global market for IT next year, as big tech loads up on GPUs and hyperscalers double down on infrastructure buildouts.
But enterprises remain cautious about spending, according to ISG. While executives plan to increase AI investments by 5.7% next year, they intend to keep a tight rein on overall IT spend, funding modernization investments by optimizing costs elsewhere.
Accenture has seen that pattern coalesce over the last several months, according to Sweet. “The twin themes are cost efficiency and growth,” she said Thursday. “Every industry wants cost efficiency now, and they're looking for growth.”
Cloud and data modernization remain the keys to unlocking AI value and powering growth through enterprise adoption of the technology.
Accenture expanded its hyperscaler partnerships earlier this year, deepening an alliance with Google Cloud to advance AI adoption among Fortune 500 companies in August and cementing a three-way pact with AWS and Anthropic in March.
Enterprises keen to scale AI are turning to cloud-based platform solutions, Sweet said. “We are seeing an acceleration of the data work, which is absolutely fundamental to using GenAI,” she added.
