Accenture to launch new generative AI studio in Australia

As part of a $3 billion investment into AI, global consultancy Accenture is rolling out a series of generative AI studios across the Asia Pacific, including an outlet in Australia which will open this month.

Global professional services firm Accenture is setting up a dedicated generative AI studio in Australia due to what it says is growing client interest in the rapidly emerging technology.

Set to open before the end of the month, the local outlet is one in a network of six planned for across the Asia Pacific, with centres having already been rolled out in Singapore and India. The move is part of the firm’s $3 billion global AI investment announced last year.

Designed to connect clients with data and AI experts from Accenture and its ecosystem partners and other strategic investors, the studios will provide an opportunity for the accelerated experimentation, co-creation and scaling of generative AI solutions catering to a wide range of business and functional needs, with each centre to also specialise in one or more industries such as the banking, renewables, telecommunications, manufacturing and public sectors.

“Clients are ready to move beyond proof-of-concepts and into production to tackle more complex business problems across their value chain,” stated Leo Framil, CEO of Accenture’s Growth Markets division. “They also recognise that genAI introduces new, unique risks that need consideration and mitigation. Our studios will provide enterprises with the best ideas and capabilities to shape tailor-made solutions and help them reinvent their business responsibly.”

Accenture points to one of its recent surveys as evidence of the growing demand for AI innovation, in which more than three quarters of its C-suite respondents in the Asia Pacific stated their intentions to increase related spending over the course of 2024. The firm also said it will draw on its experience of client conversations and the 300 generative AI projects it presently has underway, with Accenture holding almost 1,500 issued and pending AI patents.

The firm has also demonstrated its willingness to put its money where its mouth is, last year announcing a massive $3 billion, three-year investment into developing its AI capabilities amid a flurry of activity from the consulting industry following the public release of ChatGPT, with Accenture aiming to double its global AI workforce to 80,000 over that time through a mix of training, recruitment and further acquisitions.

One of the deals closed by the firm since then was for SAP consultancy Bourne Digital, which led to the earlier addition of a specialised SAP user experience design centre in Melbourne – which was the first ‘AppHaus’ of its kind in Australia upon its establishment in 2019. The hub has since been relaunched at Accenture’s Collins Street office, although the firm hasn’t yet indicated where the new GenAI centre will be located in Australia.

Commenting on its upcoming launch, Vivek Luthra, Accenture’s Melbourne-based Data and AI segment lead for Growth Markets, stated, “Our generative AI studios strengthen our existing investments in data and AI to provide our clients with a full spectrum of capabilities to build and scale AI to improve productivity and drive growth. Harnessing the true potential of generative AI lies in going deeper, and building a strong data strategy, anchored in a digital core.”