Accenture CEO Makes AI Skills Mandatory for Promotions: "If You Want To Get Promoted"

Accenture CEO Julie Sweet has announced that proficiency in artificial intelligence (AI) tools is no longer optional; it's now a requirement for promotions within the company. She made the comments on the Rapid Response podcast, explaining that AI has become part of how Accenture operates.

This statement comes months after Accenture laid off at least 11,000 employees. Last year, in September, the IT giant fired thousands of employees amid a massive AI-focused restructuring programme. The company had said it would reskill employees for AI roles and "exit" those who cannot be retrained.

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"If you want to get promoted, you've got to do the things that we do to operate Accenture," she said during the podcast. "These are the new tools to operate a company. We didn't go from zero to 'you won't get promoted' in a month. It's over three years of getting used to the technology, making sure it's user-friendly, making sure we have the right workbench for people to use, and then saying, 'Hey, this is Accenture and how we operate,'" Sweet explained.

Sweet compared the current AI push to the adoption of computers in offices, stating that AI is now the primary tool for work. "No one would have said that requiring someone to use a computer is coercion. It's how the companies were going to get work done. Today, AI at Accenture is how we do work," she said.

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The company has invested $3 billion over three years to integrate AI across operations and grow its AI workforce to 80,000 professionals. Overall, the company has more than 770,000 employees.

Not just Accenture, several other companies have planned things around AI. Such as Microsoft, which laid off employees, but the company has also onboarded new people. Mark Zuckerberg's META also fired employees in 2025, but soon went on an AI hiring spree and filled many of the positions with upskilled professionals.