- Accenture mandates regular AI tool use for promotions to leadership roles
- Policy excludes employees in 12 European countries and US government division
- Company laid off 11,000 workers amid AI-focused restructuring plan
Amid the growing dominance of artificial intelligence, senior staff members at Accenture have been instructed to use its AI tools on a regular basis in order to be considered for promotions to leadership roles.
According to a Financial Times report, the consultancy giant has informed associate directors and senior managers that “regular adoption” of AI is required for them to progress to leadership positions.
"Our strategy is to be the reinvention partner of choice for our clients and to be the most client-focused, AI-enabled, great place to work," an Accenture spokesperson was quoted as saying by CNBC.
The official added that this requires the "adoption of the latest tools and technologies to serve our clients most effectively.”
The new policy for promotions was sent out in an internal email, which stated that use of their key tools will be a "visible input to talent discussions”.
This comes months after the company laid off at least 11,000 employees, amid a massive AI-focused restructuring programme.
The employees of the company in 12 European nations will remain unaffected by the latest policy, along with the staff members working in the division handling US government contracts, the FT report added.
Earlier, the Business Insider reported that the company has decided to part ways with the workforce it cannot retrain with AI skills, but is further planning to hire more people.
A restructuring strategy was outlined by the company in September last year, in which it planned to lay off employees who would fail to reskill on AI.
CEO Julie Sweet, during an earnings call, said employees would be expected to “retrain and retool” at scale, the CNBC report mentioned. Sweet further informed that about 550,000 workers at the company had already been reskilled on the fundamentals of generative AI.
Sweet outlined, "Our No. 1 strategy is upskilling, given the skills we need, and we have had a lot of experience in upskilling, we are trying to, in a very compressed timeline, where we don't have a viable path for skilling, sort of exiting people so we can get more of the skills we need.”
Also Read | Gen AI Adoption To Impact Working Hours Of Indians, Says Accenture
At present, Accenture has a total of 780,000 employees globally, as per CNBC.
In recent times, Accenture has announced multiple partnerships and tools. In December 2025, it partnered with OpenAI to provide its employees access to ChatGPT and continue to upskill on artificial intelligence.
Also, it joined hands with Anthropic to train 30,000 of its employees on Claude AI tools. It even partnered with Palantir for giving AI training using the software company's platforms to more than 2,000 of its staff.
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