Accenture CEO Julie Sweet to company’s employees: If you want a promotion, you need to …
Accenture CEO Julie Sweet has a clear message for the company’s employees. She has advised that employees seeking promotions at the company must demonstrate proficiency in using its artificial intelligence (AI) tools. The recommendation comes as AI skills have become a key part of how the consultancy now operates. Speaking on the Rapid Response podcast, Sweet said that using AI tools has become a requirement for employees who want to move up the company’s ranks.“If you want to get promoted, you’ve got to do the things that we do to operate Accenture. 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 a three-year period 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 said.Sweet’s comments come as Accenture expands its use of AI across operations and employee workflows. In September 2025, the company said it had invested more than $865 million in a six-month business optimisation programme that includes reskilling thousands of employees and removing workers who declined to adapt to evolving workplace technologies.
How Accenture is planning to reskill its employees for using AI in its operations
In 2023, Accenture announced a three-year, $3 billion reskilling plan to integrate AI across its operations. One of the goals of the initiative was to expand the company’s AI workforce to 80,000 professionals through hiring, acquisitions and training programmes. Accenture currently has more than 770,000 employees.Sweet said that the use of AI in the workplace is similar to earlier shifts when computers became widely used in offices. She compared current AI reskilling efforts with the typewriter and computer training that employees once had to learn.“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 explained.Sweet also said that she understands why some companies are cautious about adopting AI across their organisations. In a previous interview with Fortune, she said some companies struggled to integrate AI because they treated it as an additional tool within existing workflows rather than designing systems around the technology.“First of all, I think we’re a good lesson in something that I’m advising CEOs all about: To capture the opportunity with AI, you really have to be willing to rewire your company,” Sweet said at that time.She also noted that Accenture employees faced challenges as they adapted to the new tools and changes in working methods.“For our people and our clients, it was hard. How do you have the courage to do that? That’s where you have the humility, but also this idea of embracing change and innovation,” Sweet noted.
