Davos 2024: Accenture invests $1 billion annually on Gen AI training, says CEO Julie Sweet

Accenture CEO Julie Sweet said there wasn’t a responsible personal computer or responsible cloud, there is responsible AI for a reason.

Accenture invests $1 billion annually on training its workforce on generative artificial intelligence, chief executive officer Julie Sweet said on January 16 at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

“You have to be willing as a part of that to upskill because people in our workforce have not received this training in their education,” Sweet said while addressing the session "Generative AI: Steam Engine of the Fourth Industrial Revolution?”

Sweet said partnership with governments is required to change basic education. "It's not going to help now, but we need to think 10-20-30 years ahead," she said.

She said that the single biggest differentiator in whether a company or government successfully reaps benefits from generative AI is leadership.

"You actually have to understand it at a very deep level because it is not that there are millions of use-cases.... but you have to operationalise it," Sweet said.

She further said operationalising generative AI needs to be done in a responsible way because, "there wasn't a responsible PC or cloud, there is responsible AI for a reason."

Sweet said reskilling of talent is important, and it won’t be possible to implement it unless governments and companies think “very differently.”

“Well-paying jobs for people solve a lot of problem and AI will create a lot of new jobs but you won’t be able to take the current people and put them in the jobs unless you partner together, governments and companies, on reskilling,” Sweet said.

She added that generative AI is not a hype, unlike many other technological developments. The nascent technology is at a very early stage but is moving fast, said Sweet.

“In the last 30 years, I can’t remember a single technology where I can stand in front of a CEO, put up yes we use slides, something that showed every part of the enterprise in a material impact with credibility,” Sweet said.

“No one says we’re crazy, that is very different and so there isn’t an industry that’s not going to be impacted (by gen AI),” said the 56-year-old business leader who also serves as a trustee at the World Economic Forum Board.

Generative AI is moving ten-times the pace of previous big ones, said Arvind Krishna, the Indian-American chairman and CEO of IBM, who was sitting alongside Sweet in the panel.

“If you look at the rate and pace, it is incredible… but how do you put guardrails while allowing innovation to happen, that’s kind of the dilemma,” said Krishna. His advice was to regulate the use-cases and not the technology itself, as that would stifle innovation.

AI in today’s form will generate $4 trillion of annual productivity before the end of the decade, Krishna said.