Accenture

“We are progressing towards our goal of doubling our deeply skilled data and AI practitioners from 40,000 to 80,000, with an additional 5,000 practitioners as of Q1.”

“With our digital learning platform, we delivered approximately 44 million training hours, an increase of 10% compared with fiscal 2023, predominantly due to generative AI training.”

“As you know, we are investing $3 billion in AI over three years.”

“We have nearly reached our goal of 80,000 AI and data professionals, and our people participated in approximately eight million training hours this quarter, with a significant focus on building advanced AI technology and industry skills.”

“In closing, we remain focused on executing our business and capturing new opportunities for growth while continuing to invest to strengthen our relevance in the age of AI for long-term market leadership.”

“Cost of services and the related gross margin may be impacted by several factors, including contract profitability, which includes the pricing on the work that we sell, as well as by the investments we make in our business, such as research and development to build assets, platforms and industry and functional solutions and strategic acquisitions, as well as in our people, such as total rewards and learning and professional development.”

“We are increasingly applying AI-based technologies, including generative AI, to our services and solutions, to how we deliver work to our clients, and to our own internal operations.”

“Our proprietary switchboard allows a user to select the combination of models to address business context or factors like cost or accuracy.”

“they're coming to us because we're doing a really good job ourselves of being able to know how you use the tokens, which models you use for which problems. That's something we've been focused on since the very beginning.”

“In addition to looking at it for acquisitions, we're also going to be building more and more, and we've already started with our ecosystem partners, where we're basically going to have IP together that creates solutions that also drive then our services. We're building them ourselves. For example, our tokenomics platform internally, we're now taking to clients, and that's a platform we built to optimize tokens.”

“Operating income decreased as revenue growth was offset by higher non-payroll costs, including an increase in facility and technology costs.”

“As you know, we are investing $3 billion in AI over three years.”

“We are also investing in AI acquisitions. For example, we recently announced our intent to acquire Ammagamma, an Italy-based firm that helps companies advance their uses of AI and generative AI technologies.”

“On acquisitions, because of the exciting OT cybersecurity acquisitions we announced today, which I'll talk about in a moment, we now expect to deploy approximately $9 billion of capital this year based on the anticipated closing dates of the acquisitions.”

“We are going to continue to look at those opportunities because particularly as the technology and AI changes so much, clients are looking for more and more opportunities to not have to build things, to not have to try to figure it out themselves.”

“We are skewing, however, toward where we see the demand, which is in areas where we uniquely have the domain expertise the clients needed. It's usually triggered by AI. That's what we're seeing. We're skewing our acquisitions to where we see the biggest growth opportunities right now, and where we see the biggest growth opportunities on the product side are in these areas that are being triggered by AI.”

“The valuations on the services we're seeing are ticking up because they're in demand, and we have different valuations for software and products”

“we expect to access the long-term debt market to increase our liquidity for M&A spend and general corporate purposes”

“During the nine months ended May 31, 2026, we completed individually immaterial acquisitions for total consideration of $2,815,388, net of cash acquired.”

“As you know, we are investing $3 billion in AI over three years.”

“together with our assets and platforms including myWizard, myNav, SynOps and AI Navigator for Enterprise to deliver tangible value for our clients.”

“Our proprietary switchboard allows a user to select the combination of models to address business context or factors like cost or accuracy.”

“Cost of services and the related gross margin may be impacted by several factors, including contract profitability, which includes the pricing on the work that we sell, as well as by the investments we make in our business, such as research and development to build assets, platforms and industry and functional solutions and strategic acquisitions, as well as in our people, such as total rewards and learning and professional development.”

“Clients continue to be focused on transforming their operations through technology, AI and data, and leveraging our proprietary assets and platforms and talent to drive productivity and cost savings.”

“In closing, we remain focused on executing our business and capturing new opportunities for growth while continuing to invest to strengthen our relevance in the age of AI for long-term market leadership.”

“Second, clients continue to look to reinvent faster, leverage our proprietary platforms and expertise, and achieve greater efficiencies and growth, including through managed services across the enterprise. We're seeing the nature of these programs with managed services evolve, with clients asking for more consulting and AI expertise within them.”

“We are going to continue to look at those opportunities because particularly as the technology and AI changes so much, clients are looking for more and more opportunities to not have to build things, to not have to try to figure it out themselves.”

“In addition to looking at it for acquisitions, we're also going to be building more and more, and we've already started with our ecosystem partners, where we're basically going to have IP together that creates solutions that also drive then our services. We're building them ourselves. For example, our tokenomics platform internally, we're now taking to clients, and that's a platform we built to optimize tokens.”

“We are increasingly applying AI-based technologies, including generative AI, to our services and solutions, to how we deliver work to our clients, and to our own internal operations.”

“We strive to adjust pricing as well as drive cost and delivery efficiencies, such as changing the mix of people and utilizing technology, to reduce the impact of compensation increases on our margin and contract profitability.”

“As it relates to the revenue per head and the non-linearity, I mean, we do have automation. We do have value-based projects. While there still is, obviously, a connection to the amount of people that we have, we have been able to break that.”

“together with our assets and platforms including myWizard, myNav, SynOps and AI Navigator for Enterprise to deliver tangible value for our clients.”

“And then with respect to pricing and passing it along to our clients, remember, this has been a business model for the industry, really all the way going back to the introduction of technology and RPA, right, where we're signing contracts that depend on our use of more technology over time to provide productivity. And so that's still the commercial model of the industry right now.”

“We're expanding our partnership to make that possible, consolidating fragmented operations across critical business functions into a unified managed services model with agentic AI embedded throughout and humans in the lead. The result is automation replacing manual effort, faster speed to market, and significant cost savings and productivity gains that Bath & Body Works can reinvest directly into growth.”

“our goal is always to continue to drive improved gross margins, improved SG&A, while we invest significantly in our business.”

“We continue to see our fixed price work be over 60% and continuing to increase.”

“Margin's not a big difference that I would call out relative to fixed price versus the other commercial constructs, but it is embedded in our 20 basis points of exp ansion for the year.”

“The decrease in gross margin was primarily due to higher non-payroll costs, including higher subcontractor costs, largely offset by lower payroll costs.”

“The increase in gross margin was primarily due to lower payroll costs, partially offset by an increase in non-payroll costs.”

“Utilization for the third quarter of fiscal 2026 was 93%, compared to 92% in the third quarter of fiscal 2025.”

“Our workforce, the majority of which serves our clients, was approximately 799,000 as of May 31, 2026, compared to approximately 779,000 as of August 31, 2025 and 791,000 as of May 31, 2025.”

“We strive to adjust pricing as well as drive cost and delivery efficiencies, such as changing the mix of people and utilizing technology, to reduce the impact of compensation increases on our margin and contract profitability.”

“Additionally, payroll costs for our geographic markets increased in line with revenues, except as described below.”

“Operating income increased due to revenue growth in local currency and the positive impact of foreign currency exchange rates, which resulted in an increase in U.S. dollar revenues and lower payroll costs as a percentage of revenues, partially offset by higher non-payroll costs, including an increase in sub-contractor costs.”

“We recorded a total of $923 million under the program, including $628 million of employee severance and $295 million primarily related to the divestiture of two acquisitions in the Americas.”

“We are increasingly applying AI-based technologies, including generative AI, to our services and solutions, to how we deliver work to our clients, and to our own internal operations.”

“During the second quarter of fiscal 2023, we initiated actions to streamline our operations, transform our non-billable corporate functions and consolidate our office space to reduce costs.”

“Last quarter, we shared that we had sold approximately 300 projects with $300 million in sales in all of FY 2023. Demand continued to accelerate in Q1, with over $450 million in Gen AI sales.”

“I'll just remind you, that's not the pull-through, that's not data. We are very pure because we really want to be sharing with all of you, where is GenAI in the market?”

“We are progressing towards our goal of doubling our deeply skilled data and AI practitioners from 40,000 to 80,000, with an additional 5,000 practitioners as of Q1.”

“At the same time, we see AI as the new digital. Like digital, AI is both a technology and a new way of working, and its full value will only come from strategies built on both productivity and growth. And we believe it will be used in every part of the enterprise. We also believe the introduction of generative AI signifies a transformative era that is set to drive growth for us and our clients.”

“Our consulting revenue continues to be driven by helping our clients accelerate their reinvention, in particular technology, data, and AI led digital transformations.”

“Our advanced AI bookings this quarter were $2.2 billion, nearly doubling from Q1 last year and also up from Q4. Revenue reached another milestone this quarter at approximately $1.1 billion.”

“Advanced AI new bookings of $2.2 billion”

“as you know, we were the first in our industry to share our bookings and revenue from advanced AI, which we define as Gen AI, Agentic AI, and Physical AI, and does not include data, classical AI, or RPA.”

“We introduced the metrics in Q3 FY23, just months after Gen AI burst onto the scene, initially to size the reality of the opportunity and to demonstrate our early leadership. At that time, bookings were about $100 million across roughly 100 projects, and revenue was immaterial. We have measured it consistently since that time.”

“To date, we have now delivered approximately $11.5 billion in bookings across 11,000 projects with revenue of $4.8 billion.”

“This will be the last quarter in which we share these specific metrics.”

“We're shifting to more scaled end-to-end solutions that integrate multiple forms of AI, and it has become less meaningful to isolate the data specifically for advanced AI as it does not reflect how the demand is evolving on the ground, the full scope of our AI work, or the value we're creating.”

“Over the last nine quarters, we've seen about 100 incremental clients initiate advanced AI projects with us each quarter.”

“The way I would really just think about it, so it's not meant to be some new metric in that way. What it's really showing is just how rapidly it's moving: 100 clients initiating a quarter, and that it's at the same time really, really early, right, when you think of our whole client base. But I wouldn't start now creating kind of a new metric in that.”

“We've now reached a point where advanced AI is being embedded in some way across nearly everything we do, and many of our clients are focusing on moving beyond standalone proofs of concept or initiatives.”

“Demand for large-scale reinvention remains strong — 104 quarterly client bookings of $100 million or more year-to-date, up 13% — and we are seeing more large-scale AI transformation programs, while executing our strategy to capture new areas of growth.”

“driven by helping our clients accelerate their reinvention, leveraging cloud, enterprise platforms, security, AI and data, including advanced AI”

“Clients continue to be focused on transforming their operations through technology, AI and data, and leveraging our proprietary assets and platforms and talent to drive productivity and cost savings.”

“I want to provide a few examples of how we're capturing new areas of demand in the age of AI, what we're doing to expand our total addressable market, and the areas where we are shifting to more non-FTE commercial models over time.”

“We believe that AI will be a tailwind for us and our industry as it scales, because it is a catalyst for reinvention and is creating new opportunities for growth and efficiency for our clients and for us.”

“We are starting to see clients who have more advanced digital cores move to larger AI transformation programs. You can see this demand in several significant AI-focused wins across multiple industries and markets, which we publicly announced with companies like BT Group, Mitsubishi Chemical, NSK, Piraeus, Stellantis, TEPCO, Vodafone, and the Women's Tennis Association.”

“The major theme of all of these programs is that we are moving clients from using AI to running on AI.”

“We are also seeing more clients move from pilots to production, and all of this is happening even as AI is still in the early innings. This quarter, we saw another 100 clients initiate advanced AI projects with us.”

“Together, these actions show how we are building a strong foundation for us to win in AI, expanding our addressable market across new growth areas and client segments, and evolving towards more non-FTE revenue over time.”

“The reason is that we are truly the only company that can cover, at scale, everything from the AI and technology foundation to reinventing nearly every part of the enterprise.”

“Second, clients continue to look to reinvent faster, leverage our proprietary platforms and expertise, and achieve greater efficiencies and growth, including through managed services across the enterprise. We're seeing the nature of these programs with managed services evolve, with clients asking for more consulting and AI expertise within them.”

“We're expanding our partnership to make that possible, consolidating fragmented operations across critical business functions into a unified managed services model with agentic AI embedded throughout and humans in the lead. The result is automation replacing manual effort, faster speed to market, and significant cost savings and productivity gains that Bath & Body Works can reinvest directly into growth.”

“Finally, clients with more advanced digital cores are starting to take on larger AI programs. Exciting green shoots. These large-scale AI programs are complex, to make advanced AI work, deep industry and functional knowledge is needed in addition to technology and AI expertise.”

“We're embedding AI directly into the core of how they operate, building on their existing network intelligence, customer data, and service management platform.”

“AIOps capabilities with autonomous agents will detect, route, and resolve incidents with self-healing that accelerates how quickly issues are resolved.”

“Together with a leading large language model provider and hyperscaler, we built an AI engine that validates and enriches leads, generates personalized campaign content, and automates brand and legal validations.”

“In B2B sales and marketing, conversion rates increased and drove net new revenue. Lead accuracy jumped from 13%-97%. Campaign speed to market improved by 55%, and marketing content teams are 40% more productive, with capacity freed to drive further growth. This is what AI ROI looks like in practice.”

“At the same time, we are executing in new areas, including demand in AI and expanding our TAM.”

“We've seen a three-quarter trend now of more consulting work in those large programs for managed services because our clients are asking us to help them use AI and change the processes to do more change management to really embed new ways of working.”

“one of the things we're clearly seeing, in fact, we have a whole practice that we're starting to grow now is on how to help clients optimize their use of tokens.”

“It's also helping because we have delivered real ROI, and our clients are seeing the spend, but they're struggling with the ROI.”

“Because the budgets haven't been, even with AI, they're spending it differently, but they haven't been increasing.”

“We are really focus ed on expanding our TAM while we're capturing more of the AI spend.”

“In addition to looking at it for acquisitions, we're also going to be building more and more, and we've already started with our ecosystem partners, where we're basically going to have IP together that creates solutions that also drive then our services. We're building them ourselves. For example, our tokenomics platform internally, we're now taking to clients, and that's a platform we built to optimize tokens.”

“We called out that we're starting to see the AI large en terprise programs where they're not just use cases, but really embedding it.”

“When we look at the AI projects themselves, while still small, there's been a steady increase in the average size.”

“That fundamental building of every quarter is continuing. The demand is the same. Getting ready for AI and then deploying AI. We're really optimistic because we believe AI is going to be a tailwind as it scales for us in the industry.”

“Clients are very focused on whatever the kind of work, whether it's AI or not, in tangible results.”

“I'll just remind you, that's not the pull-through, that's not data. We are very pure because we really want to be sharing with all of you, where is GenAI in the market?”

“Turning to data and AI, we estimate that less than 10% of companies have mature data and AI capabilities. This is a critical part of building the digital core, and we see this embedded in our larger transformations, in work focused on data and AI modernization, and in the opportunities of generative AI.”

“For lots of companies, it's also more spending, mostly on building that digital core, because many companies don't have the data estates in order. They're not in the cloud. They don't have the data in order to use the GenAI.”

“as you know, we were the first in our industry to share our bookings and revenue from advanced AI, which we define as Gen AI, Agentic AI, and Physical AI, and does not include data, classical AI, or RPA.”

“That's why we continue to see at least one out of every two advanced AI projects lead to a data project”

“A lot of our reinvention work today is helping clients get ready for AI, data remains a critical enabler with at least one out of every two advanced AI projects continuing to lead to a data project.”

“Turning to data and AI, we estimate that less than 10% of companies have mature data and AI capabilities. This is a critical part of building the digital core, and we see this embedded in our larger transformations, in work focused on data and AI modernization, and in the opportunities of generative AI.”

“For lots of companies, it's also more spending, mostly on building that digital core, because many companies don't have the data estates in order. They're not in the cloud. They don't have the data in order to use the GenAI.”

“We are continuing to see significant demand in areas like cloud migration and modernization, modern ERP and data and AI, including GenAI, platforms and security, all of which represent areas of great opportunity”

“Our consulting revenue continues to be driven by helping our clients accelerate their reinvention, in particular technology, data, and AI led digital transformations.”

“While the discretionary environment is unchanged, clients continue to prioritize large-scale transformations, which include becoming AI-ready.”

“driven by helping our clients accelerate their reinvention, leveraging cloud, enterprise platforms, security, AI and data, including advanced AI”

“We continue to assist clients with reinvented operations, application development and maintenance, and infrastructure management including cloud and security.”

“We see that companies in this segment face many of the same technology, data, AI, cybersecurity, and productivity challenges as large enterprises, but they often need solutions that are faster to deploy, more repeatable, and right-sized for their scale.”

“Clients continued to invest in the foundations needed to scale AI. This includes strengthening their digital core through cloud, data security, and operating model transformation.”

“A lot of our reinvention work today is helping clients get ready for AI, data remains a critical enabler with at least one out of every two advanced AI projects continuing to lead to a data project.”

“We've seen a three-quarter trend now of more consulting work in those large programs for managed services because our clients are asking us to help them use AI and change the processes to do more change management to really embed new ways of working.”

“Because the budgets haven't been, even with AI, they're spending it differently, but they haven't been increasing.”

“That fundamental building of every quarter is continuing. The demand is the same. Getting ready for AI and then deploying AI. We're really optimistic because we believe AI is going to be a tailwind as it scales for us in the industry.”

“A very significant portion of our revenue and services and solutions are based on technology or software provided by a few major ecosystem partners.”

“Our strong ecosystem relationships provide a significant competitive advantage, and we are a key partner of a broad range of technology providers, including Adobe, Alibaba, Amazon Web Services, Blue Yonder, Cisco, Databricks, Dell, Google, HPE, IBM RedHat, Microsoft, NVIDIA, Oracle, Palo Alto Networks, Pegasystems, Salesforce, SAP, ServiceNow, Snowflake, VMware, Workday and many others.”

“We have announced a number of expansions of partnerships with our top 10 ecosystem partners in AI and data, and our revenue growth from these partners continues to outpace our overall growth. We are also on track to more than double our bookings from our key emerging AI and data partners compared with FY 2025, including Anthropic, Databricks, Gemini, Mistral AI, Nvidia, OpenAI, Palantir, and Snowflake.”

“Together with a leading large language model provider and hyperscaler, we built an AI engine that validates and enriches leads, generates personalized campaign content, and automates brand and legal validations.”

“We are continuing to see significant demand in areas like cloud migration and modernization, modern ERP and data and AI, including GenAI, platforms and security, all of which represent areas of great opportunity”

“Security is also essential to a digital core, and we continue to see very strong double-digit growth in our security business this quarter.”

“In North America, we are continuing to build out our new growth area of capital projects, an $88 billion addressable market in North America, which we entered in August with the acquisition of Anser Advisory.”

“Security remains one of our fastest-growing businesses, growing very strong double digits this quarter.”

“Our agreement to acquire a majority stake in Dragos and all of runZero and NetRise, leaders in OT Security, is the type of move that defines our strategy”

“On acquisitions, because of the exciting OT cybersecurity acquisitions we announced today, which I'll talk about in a moment, we now expect to deploy approximately $9 billion of capital this year based on the anticipated closing dates of the acquisitions.”

“Now, let's talk about our big move in OT security to create a platform-led growth business with a non-FTE commercial model.”

“Cyber is a key enabler for AI. We cannot have an AI revolution without critical infrastructure, and you cannot have those without OT security, which is where today the world is most vulnerable.”

“AI and geopolitical risk are accelerating the need for cybersecurity adoption for the operational technology that underpins critical infrastructure and industrial operations”

“We have grown our services organically and inorganically over the last decade from roughly $700 million in FY 2016 to $10 billion in fiscal 2025, a 35% CAGR over the period, four times that of Accenture's over the same period.”

“Another area of strong demand are the AI enablers we've been investing in from capital projects to data centers to LearnVantage to cybersecurity, one of our largest AI enablers. As I mentioned earlier, OT security is one of the hottest areas driven by AI cyber threats and geopolitical risk.”

“You can't have an AI revolution unless you have critical infrastructure and unless you secure when you start moving into physical AI, and you can't have that without OT security.”

“As well as AI enablers, right? Cybersecurity, capital projects, data centers.”

“We are skewing, however, toward where we see the demand, which is in areas where we uniquely have the domain expertise the clients needed. It's usually triggered by AI. That's what we're seeing. We're skewing our acquisitions to where we see the biggest growth opportunities right now, and where we see the biggest growth opportunities on the product side are in these areas that are being triggered by AI.”

“If you think about what we did with DLB Associates, that acquisition, they're growing very high double digits, right?”

“As it relates to the revenue per head and the non-linearity, I mean, we do have automation. We do have value-based projects. While there still is, obviously, a connection to the amount of people that we have, we have been able to break that.”

“Some of these technological developments have reduced and replaced, in whole or in part, some of our historical services and solutions and will continue to do so in the future.”

“As these technologies evolve, some services and tasks currently performed by our people will be replaced by automation, including AI-enabled solutions, which will lead to reduced demand for our services and/or adversely affect the utilization rate of our professionals, if demand for those services is not replaced by demand for new services.”

“We believe that AI will be a tailwind for us and our industry as it scales, because it is a catalyst for reinvention and is creating new opportunities for growth and efficiency for our clients and for us.”

“That fundamental building of every quarter is continuing. The demand is the same. Getting ready for AI and then deploying AI. We're really optimistic because we believe AI is going to be a tailwind as it scales for us in the industry.”

“In terms of consulting type of work, we did see it tick down, and it was the result of the indirect and the direct impact of the Middle East.”

“We continue to assist clients with reinvented operations, application development and maintenance, and infrastructure management including cloud and security.”

“As it relates to the revenue per head and the non-linearity, I mean, we do have automation. We do have value-based projects. While there still is, obviously, a connection to the amount of people that we have, we have been able to break that.”

“The business environment is competitive, and we continue to experience lower pricing across the business.”

“the introduction of new technologies (such as generative AI), services or products by competitors, which could reduce our ability to obtain favorable pricing”

“And then with respect to pricing and passing it along to our clients, remember, this has been a business model for the industry, really all the way going back to the introduction of technology and RPA, right, where we're signing contracts that depend on our use of more technology over time to provide productivity. And so that's still the commercial model of the industry right now.”

“And we are starting to see more focus on trying to get to outcome-based.”

“While the business environment remained competitive, pricing was relatively stable.”

“We strive to adjust pricing as well as drive cost and delivery efficiencies, such as changing the mix of people and utilizing technology, to reduce the impact of compensation increases on our margin and contract profitability.”

“I want to provide a few examples of how we're capturing new areas of demand in the age of AI, what we're doing to expand our total addressable market, and the areas where we are shifting to more non-FTE commercial models over time.”

“Together, these actions show how we are building a strong foundation for us to win in AI, expanding our addressable market across new growth areas and client segments, and evolving towards more non-FTE revenue over time.”

“Now, let's talk about our big move in OT security to create a platform-led growth business with a non-FTE commercial model.”

“We're expanding our partnership to make that possible, consolidating fragmented operations across critical business functions into a unified managed services model with agentic AI embedded throughout and humans in the lead. The result is automation replacing manual effort, faster speed to market, and significant cost savings and productivity gains that Bath & Body Works can reinvest directly into growth.”

“One of the things that I've said consistently is that in things that our clients have been bu ying and services for a long time, it's going to take a while to change the buying patterns. It's much easier to go into new categories or to provide new kinds of value, and switch to non-FTE models.”

“We continue to see our fixed price work be over 60% and continuing to increase.”

“Margin's not a big difference that I would call out relative to fixed price versus the other commercial constructs, but it is embedded in our 20 basis points of exp ansion for the year.”

“Right now, we're seeing a lot of reprioritization, right? Because, I mean, obviously the market's growing. Like, we're growing, the market's growing, so spending in technology is increasing. It's not increasing as fast as it was increasing a couple of years ago, right?”

“one of the things we're clearly seeing, in fact, we have a whole practice that we're starting to grow now is on how to help clients optimize their use of tokens.”

“It's also helping because we have delivered real ROI, and our clients are seeing the spend, but they're struggling with the ROI.”

“At the same time, there's a certain amount of spending that's going to happen, so we're not seeing it be material to impact the spend on services today. If anything, we think it's going to drive more to use services, and that's how we're seeing it develop.”

“Because the budgets haven't been, even with AI, they're spending it differently, but they haven't been increasing.”