AI changing entry-level jobs, becoming 'path to prosperity': Accenture CEO

CEO Julie said the company recognises the importance of India in its AI-enabled future. At Accenture, we're incredibly proud to have over 350,000 and growing re-inventors here in India, she said

Artificial intelligence (AI) is “fundamentally changing” entry-level jobs as it becomes the “only path for global prosperity”, said Julie Sweet, chief executive officer of technology consulting firm Accenture, on Thursday.

 

Delivering a keynote address at the India AI Impact Summit, Sweet outlined three priorities to ensure that the technology’s benefits are widely distributed. “First, using AI as an engine for growth is the only path for global prosperity for all. Second, companies, countries, and individuals must reinvent how they work and learn. And finally, it is humans in the lead, not humans in the loop, that will determine our future.”

 

Sweet underscored India’s importance in Accenture’s AI plans. “At Accenture, we’re incredibly proud to have over 350,000 and growing re-inventors here in India. We also have one of the largest AI workforces in the world, tightly integrated with our growing AI hubs in the US, Europe, the Middle East, and Japan,” she said.

 

Addressing concerns about job losses due to AI adoption, Sweet cited Accenture’s own expansion over the past decade.

 

“In 2013, we were roughly 275,000 people and $29 billion in revenue. Today we are over 750,000 and growing and $70 billion in revenue. What the last decade has taught us is a critical lesson: When companies and countries embrace new technologies and then use them to drive growth and productivity, they prosper.”

 

According to Accenture’s latest quarterly survey of C-suite executives across 20 countries, 78 per cent of respondents said AI’s greatest value lies in driving growth, she said.

 

“AI fundamentally is changing what an entry-level job looks like. We will hire more (people) into entry-level jobs this year than last year. But the skills we require and the way we're onboarding those individuals is fundamentally different.”

 

Like other speakers at the summit, Sweet spoke about AI’s impact in sectors such as pharmaceuticals. “Large language models are about to become the new mall. This is an entirely new way to engage customers and to engage in commerce that did not exist in 2022,” she said, referring to advanced AI systems trained on vast datasets to understand, generate, and predict human-like text and code.

 

“If you think about pharma, we see a path toward bringing drugs to market much faster than the average of nine years. Not possible before, which means that life-saving drugs will get to people faster and pharma will have accelerated growth.”