Accenture tells staff to use AI or leave as it axes 11,000
Laid-off staff not capable of being retrained in AI, claims CEO Julie Sweet
Accenture is laying off more than 11,000 staff that CEO Julie Sweet claims cannot get with the AI programme. Nonetheless, the consulting giant will increase its headcount overall, with the focus on data and AI professionals.
Accenture CEO Julie Sweet has said that staff must learn and use AI – as well as implement AI projects for clients – or leave, with the company laying off more than 11,000 staff that the company claims cannot be suitably retrained.
Speaking during the conference call for the company’s full-year fourth quarter financial results, for the quarter and year to the end of August 2025, Sweet announced the cuts of employees “where reskilling, based on our experience, is not a viable path for the skills we need”.
Regardless of those layoffs, Sweet added that the company would nevertheless increase its headcount during the current financial year – full year 2026 – with the focus on AI.
“Advanced AI has taken the mindshare of CEOs, the C-suite and boards faster than any technology development we've seen in the past two decades.” said Accenture CEO Julie Sweet. “Generations of leaders need new skills to understand how AI should inform their business strategy. The workforce needs new skills to use AI and new talent strategies and related competencies must be developed...
“We're working with companies early in their journey to use AI, which want our help to get them AI ready and to leverage our assets and platforms to accelerate their ability to deploy AI.”
Sweet claimed that the company now has 77,000 AI and data professionals, up from 40,000 in 2023.” We've worked on more than 6,000 advanced AI projects just this year, and we delivered meaningful revenue in full year 2025. We're also in the process of equipping all of our reinventors with the latest AI skills. Over 550,000 of our reinventors are already trained in the fundamentals of Gen AI.”
Overall, the company filed an increase in annual revenues of seven per cent to £69.7 billion and an operating income, also up seven per cent, to $10.2 billion. Half the company’s revenues are generated in the US, with just over one-third in the EMEA region. Revenues are split around 50/50 between consulting and managed services.
In addition to AI, the company also provides security services, which increasingly also encompasses AI as a threat as well as an opportunity.
“On one hand, we’re seeing threat actors use AI to automate attacks, generate messages and deepfakes, and scan for vulnerabilities faster than ever. On the other, AI, analytics and good data, are giving defenders powerful new tools to defend against such approaches,” Kamran Ikram, Accenture’s Security lead, UKIA, told Computing earlier this year.