00:00Companies left, right and center, of course, are racing to adopt AI technologies in an attempt
00:04to be more productive and more cost efficient. As part of that drive, consulting firm Accenture
00:10says it's training its employees to be AI native. Well, I'm joined by Julie Sweet,
00:15the chief executive of Accenture. Thank you, as always, for giving us a little bit of your busy
00:19schedule, which I imagine this year was even busier than usual. First of all, how do you think,
00:24Julie, AI is actually reshaping competitiveness between the US, Europe and Asia?
00:28Well, Francine, thanks for having me. It really starts with how it's reshaping competitiveness
00:34in industries, right? So if you're a consumer-facing industry, you have to now be able to have people
00:40buy within models, for example. It's a whole new channel. And so the basis of competition
00:45in industry is changing, and the same is therefore true among the countries. If your industries are
00:51not at the forefront, you're going to have an issue. So who's adopting at pace and in the right
00:57way and who's being left behind? The US companies today, and that's really data, has said that the
01:02US has been ahead in the digital race. And because you need a digital foundation, that US-based companies
01:09are ahead. But lots of global companies, including in Europe, we have lots of great global European
01:16companies who are very fast. It's not so much about, is it US or Europe? It comes down to, if your data is not
01:24in the cloud, if you don't have a digital foundation, it's hard to go fast. And across the world, in every
01:29geography, there are great companies who have been investing, and those who have not have to catch up
01:34there, along with all the other changes that you need to make.
01:37Julie, how much of this is also about data centers? So it's a race to, you know, does it make you more powerful?
01:43Does it give you a leg up if a data center is in your country? We're seeing a lot of, like, wrangling on this.
01:48Data centers are absolutely critical, because that's the infrastructure of the country.
01:52And so that's exploding. In fact, we just bought another company to do data center consulting because
01:58of that. And you have to think about it long term. I think the mistake somehow some people are making
02:03is this isn't about the data center today. It's about a strategy. And that's what we're seeing
02:08countries doing. And we're helping countries do that, particularly as you think about sovereign AI
02:13and the need to have the data centers to support that. And I've been spending a lot of time right here
02:18in Davos on that topic. You've also trained, you know, hundreds of thousands of your staff to be
02:23AI tool native. What can companies and countries learn from your efforts?
02:28Well, first of all, if leaders don't understand AI, they can't lead the company through the changes.
02:34In three years, you should be able to say, my company has different services, has different
02:39insights. That requires a depth of learning from leaders first. And then you have to bring
02:44everybody along the way. So leader led learning is absolutely critical. It's also critical for
02:49regulators and regulated industries. If regulators block the AI, they're not going to be able to scale
02:55and succeed. And so governments, the not for profits and companies all need leader led learning
03:03and then a strategy to bring all of our people along. Can you give a concrete example? When we go
03:08around speaking to a lot of executives, they understand it. But then it's always a struggle to kind of
03:13say, how do I actually put it for my workforce or for my citizens?
03:17Well, one of my clients told me that, you know, that until they had their 300 leaders touch keyboards,
03:24see what the AI could do, they couldn't get moving. That's a very tangible example. That's the first
03:29thing we did way back after November 2022. The most training was actually our top 50 leaders who
03:36actually got their hands dirty, right, understanding it. And that's what we mean by leader led learning.
03:41And once you have that, it unlocks the possibilities of how, what does it really mean that it's going to
03:47change everything? What's the biggest mistake from, you know, customers that you advise of what
03:51they're doing with AI or not doing actually? The biggest mistake is thinking it's about AI. AI is a
03:58powerful tool. If you don't start with your business strategy and a business outcome, and that's a real
04:02problem. We've seen so many projects that are not in the same things that you measure. If it doesn't hit the
04:08P&L, it's really, you know, if it's a productivity, then it's not going to have impact. So you have to
04:12start with your strategy, not it's an AI project. What are some of the biggest questions that chief
04:18executives are asking you right now about about this year, 2026? Actually, there's been a big shift
04:23because we've had a lot of great examples of things scaling. So especially in the marketing space,
04:29pharmaceutical companies getting, you know, drugs in the hands of physicians faster because they can
04:34bring the marketing material faster is just one example, field sales, etc. So now the real shift
04:41over the last year is how do we think about this holistically? We're seeing value, real value, but we
04:47want to embed it everywhere. And how do you do that? And that comes to the talent. It comes to being
04:52willing to operate differently. And very importantly, it comes to a strategy that says, if I don't want to
04:58just do what I'm doing today better, I want to have breakthroughs. And those are the conversations
05:03that we're having. Have you heard any regrets of, you know, the way that some of them rolled out AI?
05:09The biggest regret has been too many projects without the discipline of, is it going to be
05:15material enough? What is the business outcome? This thread around, it's not, you know, AI is a tool
05:22is what you're starting to hear. Yes, it's a really, really powerful tool, but we've never built
05:27businesses, one consumers, you know, we imagine manufacturing, just by the tool.
05:33Yeah, I mean, the other thing we're talking a lot about is, you know, how everyone's job will change and
05:39training, but what's the right way to support a worker that might be really afraid of AI, that, you know,
05:45material changes the work it does today?
05:48Look, starting in 2019, we've been training all of our workers, whether you're in the mailroom or a
05:52strategist on technology. Technology is a basic skill now. And once you start making that investment,
05:59people get less scared about their jobs, because they know you're invested in making sure they can
06:05do the next choice of the next jobs. And we have a design choice. We believe you can design to have
06:11new entry level jobs. But coming along with that is you need to be able to educate. And there's also a
06:17collaboration that has to happen with schools, with universities. But we're early, we're in early
06:22innings, we can make that design choice.
06:25What does that look like?
06:26Well, the first thing it looks like, like when we're looking at Accenture, we're saying, well,
06:30some of our people can do things that maybe they would have done in two years. So what does that
06:34mean? They don't have two years of apprenticeship. So we're giving them communication training so that
06:39they can get the soft skills they would have had in that apprenticeship, right? You have to rethink
06:44what are the skills that you need, given that you're now able to augment humans so that they
06:50can do things earlier. So you have to think holistically. And the soft skills is a big
06:54place that people are missing.
06:55Are chief executives thinking enough about those entry level jobs? Because they're also spending
07:00so much money on the AI models and trying to that some of them say, look, I'm just going to
07:05skip hiring the younger folks and spend on AI instead.
07:09Francine, I think this is really important. I haven't met a single CEO that says they want
07:14to eliminate entry level jobs. Their focus is, how do you help us create the new entry
07:20level jobs? Not a single CEO thinks that is what the future should be.
07:24How much distraction is there because of trade and tariffs?
07:27This week has been quite a bit of distraction. I think we're all relieved at what came out
07:32yesterday. But at the same time, it's only been a distraction in the in the big conversation.
07:37I have had so many meetings with companies. And that is a that's too bad. But let's make sure
07:45that we're winning regardless of the atmosphere. So it's been a distraction more in the media.
07:50But I will tell you, and the CEOs are saying, we don't have tailwinds in the environment.
07:55We have to execute. Julie, thank you so much, as always, for joining us. Julie Sweet there,
08:00the chief executive of Accenture.
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