Accenture has reportedly started tracking its employees’ use of AI tools and will take it into account when deciding on top promotions, as the consulting company tries to increase the use of the technology by its workforce.
According to an internal email seen by the Financial Times, the company told senior managers and associate directors that being promoted into leadership roles would require “regular adoption” of artificial intelligence.
The consultancy has also started collecting data on weekly log-ins to its AI tools by some senior staff members, the FT reports.
Accenture has previously said it has trained 550,000 of its 780,000-strong workforce in generative AI, up from just 30 people in 2022, and has announced that it is training underway As part of its $1bn (£740m) annual spend on learning for all its employees.
Among the tools whose use will reportedly be monitored is Accenture’s AI Refinery. Chief Executive, Julie Sweet, said before This will “create opportunities for companies to reimagine their processes and operations, discover new ways of working, and scale AI solutions across the enterprise to help drive sustained change and create value”.
The company’s aggressive push into AI highlights a broader industry trend of companies using machine learning tools to help them speed up some tasks so they can focus other resources elsewhere.
accenture Better results than expected for its first quarter in December as demand for its AI-powered services got a boost.
Its latest move linking the use of AI tools to promotional potential comes just months after the New York-listed company started calling its nearly 800,000 employees “reinventors” in an effort to establish itself as a leader in artificial intelligence. The move was criticized by some as an example of corporate jargon.
The Reinventor label came amid a major restructuring at Accenture last June, when it merged its strategy, consulting, creative, technology and operations divisions into a single entity called “Reinvention Services.”
Sweet told investors in September that the company would “fire” employees who don’t have the knowledge to use AI on the job.
Older and more senior employees at the largest professional services companies are generally seen to be more reluctant to incorporate the use of AI tools into their work, while younger and more junior employees are more receptive.
The Dublin-headquartered group has previously said that employees for whom “based on our experience, reskilling is not a viable route to the skills we require” will be shown the door.
Accenture announced in December that it had signed a partnership with OpenAI, owner of ChatGPT, And its rival Anthropic, owner of cloud chatbots, is looking to capitalize on growing demand for AI services as a consulting company.
Accenture has been contacted for comment.
