00:00What's the big takeaway in all the conversations you've been having here?
00:03Because we're seeing a lot of commitments in terms of investment, in terms of money,
00:07hundreds of billions of dollars.
00:08And prior to this, there's been a lack of investment in AI.
00:12It's changing.
00:13Is it enough to convince you it is different this time around for India?
00:18Absolutely.
00:19India is really taking the lead when you think about their approach.
00:22Very pragmatic regulation.
00:24From the beginning, they're thinking about building it out as an infrastructure.
00:28They start with everyone having a digital identity.
00:32And then think about what they're doing for education.
00:34In primary education, AI and computational thinking is already embedded.
00:39So really positive about the steps that India is taking to make sure that, in fact,
00:45there's prosperity for all from an AI-enabled future.
00:49How quickly can that turn take?
00:52Because right now, it's ranked third, but it is a distant third in terms of AI competitiveness
00:57behind the likes of only the U.S. and China.
01:00How quickly can India make that pivot, you think?
01:02Well, I think pretty quickly in the sense that a lot of it is around both talent and investment.
01:10And one of the things you've seen this week is a lot of investments in India being announced.
01:15And so I think it's more around having a clear strategy and then the ability to get the investment,
01:20which we've seen is happening.
01:22And in terms of competitive advantage, how do you think India can build that versus Silicon
01:27Valley, Europe, the U.S.?
01:28If you think about the global south in particular, India starts with a huge advantage, which is
01:34the incredible talent that's here.
01:36And so, you know, one of the things that's been a theme this week is about India taking
01:41the, you know, taking a position of leadership in the global south and being a real role model.
01:47You know, when I think about Accenture, we have over 350,000 people here and it's because
01:53of the great talent.
01:54Their talent here is tightly integrated with our talent around the world.
01:58But, you know, India really is a destination for companies because of the talent.
02:03And how differently do you look at talent?
02:06You talk about how you have a great presence in India.
02:08In fact, India is the biggest market for you in terms of employees outside of the U.S.
02:12As you think about progress, developments made by AI, how are you viewing, how is that shaping
02:18how you look at talent in a market like India?
02:21Well, we actually have a global talent strategy.
02:24And whether you're in India or in the U.S., you know, we're doing, for example, company-wide
02:29agentic AI training.
02:31And so what we really think about is where is the capacity because there are constraints
02:36in many of the countries we operate where there are just not enough graduates.
02:39And that's one of the reasons so many people have come to India.
02:43But we think about our global talent strategy.
02:46And we started actually back in 2019 saying that every person at Accenture had to know
02:51what was then classical AI, data, cloud, new ways of working, because this isn't about
02:58technology.
02:58It really is about reinventing how you operate your companies, the way you look at learning.
03:04It's a reinvention.
03:05And I know that, Accenture, you, under your leadership, you have invested billions of
03:12dollars in Gen AI.
03:14I'm just wondering, in terms of meaningful returns from that investment, when do you
03:18think that might happen and what might that look like?
03:21We're already seeing those returns.
03:23Last year, we grew 7%.
03:25We're a $70 billion company.
03:28And the way we, though, really look at our success is what we're doing for clients.
03:33And so we're helping pharma companies cut down their time from drug discovery to market.
03:39We're helping consumer goods companies access the new mall, which is the LLM, helping them
03:46take advantage of the new kinds of customer engagement.
03:50All of this, of course, means that when we create value for clients, we create value for Accenture.
03:56What are the most common things that your clients are asking you to do in helping them run a better
04:01business?
04:02The biggest questions I get today is, how do we scale AI?
04:07Because there have been so many examples where you get a really successful proof of concept,
04:12but then companies are finding that they can't scale on themselves.
04:17And there's a couple of things that are really important.
04:19And the first is that it's not about the AI, right?
04:22We've learned that technology is just a tool.
04:25It's about the outcome that you drive AI.
04:27And I think that's why clients really value us, because when we're coming in, we're not
04:32selling them in an AI project.
04:33We're selling them an outcome, more customer engagement, better MPS.
04:39We're selling them higher revenue because they've got a new way of doing upsell.
04:44And so that's where clients are really coming to us, is to understand how to turn AI into a
04:51business outcome.
04:51We know that AI brings a lot of disruption, and that impacts hiring, jobs.
04:57That is still a big conversation here at this particular summit.
05:02When you take a look at how companies are employing AI, do you see perhaps a trend of companies
05:08hiring fewer people or perhaps even increase because of productivity?
05:13If there's one thing you take away from our discussion today is using AI to be an engine
05:18for growth is how you get to global prosperity, right?
05:22When you use AI to drive growth and not just productivity, that's how you end up, like Accenture,
05:28hiring more people.
05:29So we'll hire more people this year than we did last year because we're growing.
05:33We just did a quarterly survey, and 78% of C-suites now say that the biggest value from AI
05:41is actually growth.
05:42CEOs know you cannot cut your way to growth.
05:46And yet investors are not really buying into that story.
05:51Anthropic, news from Anthropic actually led to a sell-off in software companies.
05:57I mean, Accenture was hit by that as well.
05:59I'm just wondering, how do you convince investors, markets, that that's not the case really?
06:06There's a lot of things that go into the markets, and I think most companies like Accenture,
06:11we focus on what are we delivering every day.
06:14And we deliver value for our clients, and we know over the long term that when you actually
06:18deliver value and deliver on your commitments to the street in terms of numbers, that's the
06:24best way to cut through all of the noise.
06:28And in five years, how might Accenture look like because of AI?
06:32We are already changing today from what we sell and how we actually deliver it for our clients.
06:39And as you look ahead for five years, we're trying to be part of the AI infrastructure.
06:44So for example, not only are we helping clients use AI, we're helping build data centers through
06:50our consulting, right?
06:51We're helping in cyber because cyber is such a big part of it.
06:55So think of Accenture in five years as deeply embedded in every part of the AI infrastructure
07:02that's necessary for this incredible future that we've been talking about this week.
07:06Julie, just one final question.
07:08Do you think governments and governance institutions are really ready for their super intelligent
07:14systems?
07:14Well, this is a great week to demonstrate.
07:17There were so many leaders from governments across the world that I don't think anyone
07:22can say they're ready, but they're investing the time to be ready.
07:26And that's, I think, one of the reasons why I'm so optimistic coming out of this summit is
07:32that the themes are all the same.
07:34We need to make sure that we have access.
07:35We need to make sure that we drive growth and that this wonderful and powerful technology
07:41is truly used for the good of all.
07:44And that result can only start with people's commitment to that outcome.
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