Key insights
- Accenture CEO indicates AI is currently creating more entry-level opportunities as companies seek AI implementation expertise. The company is investing heavily in AI training for all employees. This suggests a potential shift in workforce skill demands, with implications for education and training programs, but the immediate impact on US equities is limited.
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We may be worrying about the wrong things when it comes to AI and the workforce: the technology is less likely to eradicate entry-level roles and more likely to weigh on promotions, according to a top executive at a major consulting firm.
Accenture CEO Julie Sweet gets a lot of questions about whether AI is eroding entry-level opportunities. But the technology is having the opposite effect at Accenture (ACN), according to Sweet, who spoke on the podcast Rapid Response in early March. She said the consulting firm is hiring more early-career workers than it did a year earlier.
Businesses want to build teams that can help them use AI to do new things, rather than simply automate repetitive tasks, Sweet said. Young professionals, she said, tend to understand this.
"I’ve had clients tell me that it’s the college graduates who come and say: 'What do you mean you’re not using this [AI tool]?'" Sweet said. Grads, she said, "want to be at the company that’s actually using it."
Economists generally believe AI is not the main reason recent college graduates are struggling in the job market. Tech and other companies that expanded during the pandemic have been cutting their workforce, which limits opportunities for young professionals.
Accenture has spent three years integrating AI into its operations and now sees itself as an AI-first consulting group.
The Dublin-based business started by training its top 50 leaders on the technology, shifted some aspects of entry-level jobs to AI, and restructured some roles that AI is expected to make more productive. Accenture now requires all staff—from human resources professionals to technologists—to attend five hours of AI training.
“Everybody needs to understand this, wherever they are, because it’s going to become a bigger and bigger part of how we're operating as a company, in addition to what we’re selling,” Sweet said.
The stakes are high for Accenture employees. Getting comfortable with AI is as crucial for advancement as learning to use a computer was a few generations ago, according to Sweet. She said Accenture considers how workers use AI tools when making promotions.
“This is Accenture, and how we operate,” Sweet said. “If you want to get promoted, you’ve got to do the things that we do."