Accenture’s $3B AI Bet Is Paying Off: Inside A Massive Transformation Fueled By Advanced AI

‘In short, on the ground, advanced AI is becoming a part of everything we do,’ says Accenture CEO Julie Sweet. ‘We’re reinventing what we sell, how we deliver, how we partner and how we operate Accenture.’

Accenture is proving that bold bets on AI can transform not only client outcomes but the very core of its business. Just two years after committing a $3 billion multi-year investment into generative AI, Accenture has tripled its revenue with advanced AI year-over-year, reaching $2.7 billion in fiscal year 2025, with GenAI bookings nearly doubling to $5.9 billion.

“These numbers only reflect revenue and bookings specifically related to advanced AI, which includes GenAI, agentic AI and physical AI,” Accenture CEO Julie Sweet said on Thursday’s fourth-quarter earnings call. “They don’t even include data, classical AI or AI used in delivery. What we’re seeing is the rise of a new category of spend.”

The Dublin, Ireland-based solutions provider behemoth, No. 1 on CRN’s Solution Provider 500 list, prefers the term “advanced AI” to encompass emerging technologies beyond traditional data science. And it’s become embedded across nearly every aspect of the company from services and platforms to internal operations and talent management.

“In short, on the ground, advanced AI is becoming a part of everything we do,” said Sweet. “We’re reinventing what we sell, how we deliver, how we partner and how we operate Accenture.”

In two years, Accenture grew its AI and data employee base from 40,000 to 77,000 and delivered more than 6,000 advanced AI projects in its 2025 fiscal year. And, more than 550,000 Accenture employees have been trained in the fundamentals of GenAI.

“Accenture’s core competency is to train and retool at scale,” she said. “Our clients cannot build all of this expertise on their own. They need us to go first and fast.”

And they are. According to the CEO, Accenture added 37 clients in Q4 alone, with quarterly bookings of over $100 million, bringing the total for the year to a record 129.

“There is a huge difference between how we’re all using AI in our individual lives and what it takes to use it in the enterprise,” she said. “For most companies, the biggest gap is tech and organizational readiness. It’s not the tech that’s the biggest barrier, it’s the mindset and the change management. Process reinvention is hard and few companies have that core competency inside.”

The company has seen an increase of clients move from small pilots to enterprise-wide deployments, “Our contracts are expanding. Our client relationships are compounding. This is creating a powerful, sustainable growth engine for Accenture.”

And while AI delivers efficiencies, those savings are being reinvested.

“The list of what our clients want to do with technology is virtually unlimited,” she said. “And when we help them save money through advanced AI, they use that budget to fund their next priorities. That’s what’s driving our seven percent growth this year.”

For the fourth quarter, Accenture reported new bookings of $21.3 billion, bringing total bookings for the year to $80.6 billion, including $1.8 billion in generative AI bookings for the quarter and $5.9 billion for the full year. Q4 revenue was reported at $17.6 billion, a seven percent increase in U.S. dollars. Full-year revenues grew by $4.8 billion to $69.7 billion, up seven percent. Free cash flow totaled $3.8 billion for the quarter and $10.9 billion for the year.

“We’ve partnered with companies early in their AI journey and we’re also helping digital leaders who want to be first to change the game,” Sweet said. “The technology is moving fast and so are we. The demand, the skills and the impact, they’re all accelerating.”

Sweet also spoke of President Trump's H-1B visa overhaul plans, which would tack on a $100,000 fee to every new petition, and said there would be no impact.

“For us, this is really a non-issue because we only have about five percent of our people in the U.S. on H-1B visas,” she said. “And they’re for really specialized experience and skills for our clients.”