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Speaker 1: Time now for our Wall Street Week daily segment. The

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Speaker 1: host of Law Street Week, David Weston, joins us as

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Speaker 1: he does every day at this time. It's been too

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Speaker 1: long since we've last seen you, but welcome back.

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Speaker 2: Well, thank you for allow words you did in my

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Speaker 2: absence exual.

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Speaker 1: Remain absolutely and in your absence. You know what we

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Speaker 1: talked a lot about while you were gone, What is that?

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Speaker 1: Artificial intelligence?

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Speaker 2: Son of Some things just don't change exactly right. It's

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Speaker 2: an awful big story. You know. We like to talk

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Speaker 2: to CEOs of big companies, particularly you're dealing with artificial intelligence.

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Speaker 2: We have one for us right now. She's Jane Sweete.

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Speaker 2: She is the Accenture CEO. Julie. Thank you so much

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Speaker 2: for joining us. Really appreciate it. I want to talk

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Speaker 2: about AI because you have some big announcements about how

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Speaker 2: you're expanding your AI presence. You've been in it for

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Speaker 2: a while, but first time it's about your business overall,

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Speaker 2: your consulting business. You had some numbers come out. You're growing,

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Speaker 2: not going quite as fast. Are you seeing softness out

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Speaker 2: there in the consulting business?

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Speaker 3: Well, thanks David, thanks for having me. As you said, overall,

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Speaker 3: we produced really solid results, five percent growth this last quarter,

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Speaker 3: very strong profitability and really strong growth in transformational deals.

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Speaker 3: So we have another twenty six clients with over one

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Speaker 3: hundred million dollars of bookings in the quarter, which is

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Speaker 3: when you look at our year to date, eleven more

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Speaker 3: than we have the same time. So transformation all road

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Speaker 3: zeed to strategy too. Technology that's going just as we'd predicted.

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Speaker 3: Where we are seeing softness is in the smaller deals,

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Speaker 3: So we see clients not doing as much the smaller

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Speaker 3: deals really, you know, we believe they're focusing on things

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Speaker 3: with a bigger impact, and at the same time we

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Speaker 3: are seeing smaller deals in gen AI. So it is

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Speaker 3: kind of a mixed picture, but certainly more caution than

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Speaker 3: we saw the prior quarter. And it's not just in

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Speaker 3: the US now we're seeing it in Europe and the

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Speaker 3: growth markets. But overall, the technology fundamentals of companies needing

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Speaker 3: to reinvent using tech, data and AI are very strong.

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Speaker 2: So, Julie, you do have clients all around the world

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Speaker 2: is extraordinary with the reach of extent. Sure really is

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Speaker 2: are you getting a sense of the economy and how

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Speaker 2: CEOs are we going to the economy? Do they see

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Speaker 2: softams around the corner and therefore saying, you know what,

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Speaker 2: we should trim our sales just a bit.

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Speaker 3: Well, I think it's a little bit difficult to predict

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Speaker 3: because there are very different situations. In the US, You've

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Speaker 3: got concern around inflation, but it's being driven by different

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Speaker 3: concerns than in Europe. And Europe it's more tied to energy.

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Speaker 3: In the US, it's been tied to US lower labor.

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Speaker 3: So I think overall the CEOs are saying this remains

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Speaker 3: a very uncertain and volatile market. We just saw another

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Speaker 3: surprise over the weekend in Europe, so I think it's

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Speaker 3: more around caution to make sure that they are focusing

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Speaker 3: on big transformations, and that's really where you see a

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Speaker 3: lot of excitement about jen Ai. We just announced that

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Speaker 3: in the last four months alone, we've done one hundred projects.

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Speaker 3: We've been, we've been, We've sold one hundred projects because

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Speaker 3: there is really unprecedented interest and that's all about looking

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Speaker 3: to the futures. So for example, working with a chemicals

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Speaker 3: company that is doing an enterprise wide data and analytics

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Speaker 3: to transform everything from their customer data to their sustainability

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Speaker 3: and beyond. You know, we're working with an insurance company

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Speaker 3: changing the way they operate around accident response. So in

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Speaker 3: every industry you are seeing interest. In fact, ninety seven

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Speaker 3: percent of executives in a recent survey that we did

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Speaker 3: have said they believe that jenai will transform their industry

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Speaker 3: and their company.

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Speaker 1: Well, in your company, Julie is spending a lot of

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Speaker 1: money on that, of course, to train up your own

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Speaker 1: folks here, and I assume that is the feed through

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Speaker 1: ultimately as to what your clients are asking for.

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Speaker 3: That's absolutely right, Romane. We just announced a three billion

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Speaker 3: dollar investment over three years. Part of that is to

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Speaker 3: go from forty thousand people trained in data and AI

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Speaker 3: to eighty thousand, and part of that will be done organically.

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Speaker 3: We are actively reskilling. We're actually now also going to

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Speaker 3: clients with our academy where we're training our own people,

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Speaker 3: and we're now helping to train our clients because as

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Speaker 3: much as they're going to depend on us, we really

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Speaker 3: believe that they need to have certain skills in house.

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Speaker 3: And so there's a lot of effort at Accentia right

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Speaker 3: now and investment going into how we can bring solutions

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Speaker 3: faster to our clients and how we can also enable

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Speaker 3: our clients, can.

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Speaker 1: You give us some details I guess on what those

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Speaker 1: solutions are, because so far most of the narrative around AI,

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Speaker 1: at least in the markets, has been around basically just

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Speaker 1: going out and buying a chip or buying a processor

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Speaker 1: or some supercomputer here. But there are a lot more

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Speaker 1: layers to that. So what exactly are your clients asking

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Speaker 1: for and more importantly, what do you think you need

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Speaker 1: to tell them?

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Speaker 2: Right?

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Speaker 3: Well, the first thing that they're asking for is where

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Speaker 3: do I get a return on investment? So lots of

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Speaker 3: CEOs remember the early days of digital transformation where they

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Speaker 3: woke up and had a million experiments and none of

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Speaker 3: them scaled or had value. But there's real value that

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Speaker 3: they can see, for example, oil and gas and safety

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Speaker 3: working with a company that takes more of their data

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Speaker 3: and puts it in the hand of their frontline workers

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Speaker 3: to prevent safety incidents, which is a big cost. We're

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Speaker 3: working with a bank that takes lots of knowledge and

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Speaker 3: it's putting it in the hands of their frontline to

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Speaker 3: do better cross selling because they have more insights. These

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Speaker 3: are areas where you can take the cost because GENAI

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Speaker 3: is not inexpensive, and get a clear ROI, and that's

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Speaker 3: where they're looking to accenture is where the real value.

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Speaker 3: And then, of course most of the issue is not

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Speaker 3: the GENI itself, it's really about data. Over half of

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Speaker 3: our clients when we talk to them, say data is

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Speaker 3: the biggest challenge, and so they're spending a lot of

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Speaker 3: time helping our clients now get ready to use GENAI.

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Speaker 2: So, Julie, how do you deal with the issue of

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Speaker 2: ethics or responsible use of AI? I know that you

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Speaker 2: had accentri have been talking about this for some time now,

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Speaker 2: but what are you saying to your clients when they say,

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Speaker 2: how do we make sure we use this responsibility? That's

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Speaker 2: a lot of concern, as you know, a lot of

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Speaker 2: particularly in governments right now.

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Speaker 3: Well, the good news is that companies and the technology companies,

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Speaker 3: companies like myself, and governments all share the same goal

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Speaker 3: to make AI and use it responsibly. I ask one

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Speaker 3: simple question, I say to every CEO, if you can't

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Speaker 3: walk out the door, pick up the phone, call someone

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Speaker 3: in your organization and they can tell you exactly where

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Speaker 3: AI is being used and what risk it is, what

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Speaker 3: you're mitigating, and what you're monitoring. You're not yet at

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Speaker 3: responsible AI. We have a responsible AI program at Accentsure

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Speaker 3: that we use with all of our work. It's overseen

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Speaker 3: by our board and our audit committee, and so we

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Speaker 3: are very focused on equipping companies moving from principles and

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Speaker 3: commitment to action and systemic protection around responsible AI. And

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Speaker 3: we really believe. We're very passionate about this, not just

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Speaker 3: because of course we're helping clients and it's a way

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Speaker 3: for us to make revenue, because we really believe it's

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Speaker 3: the right thing to do, and it is a big

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Speaker 3: unlock for you using AI for all of its potential.

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Speaker 2: One of your great strengths Accenture, Julie is you can

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Speaker 2: take something like AI and explain to clients what it

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Speaker 2: will mean for their business. What does generative AI potentially

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Speaker 2: mean for Accenture's business. Does it mean potentially down the

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Speaker 2: road you won't need as many people, or if you

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Speaker 2: have as many people, will they be doing different things?

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Speaker 3: Well, besides the obvious, that's a big opportunity to help clients.

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Speaker 3: It actually is a continuation of the journey we've already

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Speaker 3: been on. So we use a tremendous amount of AI today,

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Speaker 3: predictive AI, diagnostic AI, because our business requires us to

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Speaker 3: be more and more productive every year. And so for example,

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Speaker 3: over the last nine months, we have automated in our

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Speaker 3: operations business almost thirteen thousand jobs, and then we reskilled

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Speaker 3: those people to do other jobs. And so we have

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Speaker 3: this continuous and it's one of our great strengths, concernous

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Speaker 3: ability to create talent, and so we're very excited that

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Speaker 3: this is going to give us more levers to improve

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Speaker 3: productivity and then be able to upscale our people to

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Speaker 3: do new value add things like help our clients use

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Speaker 3: responsible AI.

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Speaker 2: Julie, thank you so very much for spending time with this.

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Speaker 2: It's Julie sweet Shee's accentual CEO and obviously Roman, as

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Speaker 2: you say, improving ROI and in the end you try

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Speaker 2: to get something out of

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Speaker 1: It that's ultimately I guess what investors are going to demand,

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Speaker 1: right exactly