Accenture Links Staff Promotions To Use of AI Tools

Accenture has reportedly started tracking staff use of its AI tools and will take this into consideration when deciding on top promotions, as the consulting company tries to increase uptake of the technology by its workforce. From a report: The company told senior managers and associate directors that being promoted to leadership roles would require "regular adoption" of artificial intelligence, according to an internal email seen by the Financial Times.

The consultancy has also begun collecting data on weekly log-ins to its AI tools by some senior staff members, the FT reports. Accenture has previously said it has trained 550,000 of its 780,000-strong workforce in generative AI, up from only 30 people in 2022, and has announced it is rolling out training to all of its employees as part of its annual $1bn annual spend on learning. Among the tools whose use will reportedly be monitored is Accenture's AI Refinery. The chief executive, Julie Sweet, has previously said this will "create opportunities for companies to reimagine their processes and operations, discover new ways of working, and scale AI solutions across the enterprise to help drive continuous change and create value."

Cynically

[liqu1d]

The more you use and report feedback on its results the better it gets at replacing you. So they'll incentivise it any way they can. Your promotion will be to unemployment.

Re: Cynically

[liqu1d]

Only if you can't afford the fines. Fine = £5,000,000/ saved wages = £10,000,000 in first year. Hmmmm I wonder what they'll choose illegal or not.

Um, what?

[CEC-P]

Depends what part of the business, don't you think? That sort of works in IT if I need to know a solution or remember a command that I can vet the answer on. I don't think the sales department should be using AI very much. I'd prefer we just hire salesmen who aren't lazy and know how to read and write at a proper level. Data analytics teams should probably implement it somehow but they're not exactly using pen and paper at the moment and I doubt they like inaccuracies and hallucinations.
I just had CoPilot

Accenture

[rtkluttz]

Is one of the worlds most despicable companies. One of their many business models for gaining new customers is that they have former executives "leave" their company, move to another company, then immediately fire IT at that company and shift services to Accenture. It is extraordinarily corrupt.

Re:Accenture

[Mr. Dollar Ton]

They used to be called Andersen Consulting, a part of Arthur Andersen.

Go look up why they changed their name.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

Re:

[pete6677]

If AI is nearly as good as hyped, Accenture itself will be entirely replaced by it.

Condition of Employment

[Puls4r]

At my company, we've been told that if we're still doing the same work we doing at the start of the year, we'll be let go. We're expected to use AI to automate a huge portion of our current workload, and then take on new work.

Re:

[unixisc]

Are you allowed to pick which tasks you automate, or which LLMs you use? If management micromanages these processes, then they might as well hand it over to AI right away, and then quit: there's nothing to be gained by staying on for the year

Two options; both bad.

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

This seems like an extraordinarily bad sign for how this place is managed (probably not surprising; but still):

If you have to mandate use and make decisions based on use metrics that suggests that either the tool isn't actually good enough that you can just mandate productivity and let people figure out that they need to use tools to get there automatically or that you are so bad at measuring productivity that you gave up and are just measuring something because it has EZ audit logs.

Not really a consultancy I'd be excited to bring in.

If you have to incentivize workers to use it...

[Somervillain]

...it must suck. No one has to incentivize me to use an IDE or any useful tool. These are motivated, well-paid individuals. If these AI tools worked, they'd embrace it enthusiastically to new bonuses. If you have a coworker who insists on using VIM instead of an IDE and can't keep up, they're typically disciplined....you don't reward the employees for following best practices, you penalize those who refuse to adopt tools, especially in an environment like Accenture, which is known for being ruthless. It's akin to incentivizing generals in North Korea to eat Kim Jong Un's daughter's cooking. If you have to pay them, in an env like that, it must mean they have no faith in it.

The Peter Principle in action

[polyp2000]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

Re:

[hardwarejunkie9]

I'd think it's more Goodhart's law ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] ) If the AI were to be able to make them more effective, that should be sufficient without measuring which tool they chose. Now they prioritize the method over the outcome.

Julie Sweet

[toxonix]

The chief executive, Julie Sweet, has previously said this will "create opportunities for companies to reimagine their processes and operations, discover new ways of working, and scale AI solutions across the enterprise to help drive continuous change and create value."

Look who's being a good CEO using AI to do her job! Or, she might actually speak like that.

managing humans/agents

[puzzled]

Anyone who wants to be in a managerial role is going to be managing both humans and agents. This is the new normal, the people who get it quickly will continue to have jobs, a whole lot of the corporate bench are going to be put out.

If you've ever worked in corporate America tech you know how it goes - lots of people around for day to day, but when TSHTF there's that small group that goes into a conference room, they do NOT take the procedures manuals with them, and when they come out its fixed.

Those actual builders, Nate B. Jones calls them "tiger teams", are gonna have ongoing employment, plus some folks who get AI who will be handling the day to day agent tooling. Any of the steady state day to day folks who want to continue working are going to have to adapt to this new normal. Most will not. There will be organizational politics trying to kill AI that works, I expect a lot of companies will be culturally incapable of making the transition, and they will bankrupt, get bought, etc.