Accenture Plans to Acquire Faculty to Expand AI Capabilities

Accenture plans to expand its artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities by acquiring Faculty, a provider of AI-native services and products.

The planned acquisition will boost Accenture’s ability to help its clients use AI solutions to reinvent their business processes, the companies said in a Tuesday (Jan. 6) press release.

The completion of the acquisition is subject to regulatory approval and other customary closing conditions, according to the release.

Faculty was founded in 2014, is based in the United Kingdom, and works with public and private sector clients to deploy AI solutions in the U.K. and other key markets, the release said.

The company’s offerings include Faculty Frontier, an enterprise decision intelligence product. Faculty Frontier’s current applications include helping life sciences companies with their clinical trial planning and execution, per the release.

Upon completion of the acquisition, Faculty Frontier will join Accenture’s suite of products that help organizations make better, faster decisions, the release said.

In addition, Faculty’s team of 400 data scientists, AI engineers and other AI professionals will integrate with Accenture’s teams, and Faculty CEO Marc Warner will continue in that role while also becoming chief technology officer of Accenture and joining the company’s Global Management Committee, per the release.

Accenture Chair and CEO Julie Sweet said in the release: “With Faculty, we will further accelerate our strategy to bring trusted, advanced AI to the heart of our clients’ businesses.”

Warner said in the release: “As AI advances rapidly, the ambition of our clients is now, rightly, no less than the reinvention of their business. I am delighted that by teaming up with Accenture, we have everything in place to support AI transformation from start to finish.”

Accenture announced in December that it teamed up with Anthropic to help companies scale AI projects. The companies’ collaboration includes the newly created Accenture Anthropic Business Group, which will provide training to around 30,000 professionals.

During the same month, Accenture partnered with OpenAI to equip tens of thousands of Accenture professionals with ChatGPT Enterprise. Embedding OpenAI technology and practices in Accenture’s consulting, operations and delivery work will enable the professional services company to share its learnings and experiences with clients, the companies said at the time.