Accenture ushers in holiday season with $1.2 billion in Gen AI orders

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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Accenture Plc, the world’s largest software services company, secured $1.2 billion in generative AI (Gen AI) bookings in the quarter-ended November 2024, bringing its total orders in the segment to $4.2 billion since September 2023. This is its highest Gen AI bookings in any quarter, signalling that clients are increasing spending on the new technology.

Accenture, which follows a September-August financial year, was the first software services company to state Gen AI deal value in June last year when it won $100 million in pure-play Gen AI projects in the quarter. India's information technology (IT) services providers are yet to spell out revenue from pure-play Gen AI projects. However, in the company’s post-earnings call with analysts on Thursday, chief executive Julie Sweet noted that the overall spending environment remains the same.

Hence, companies keen on Gen AI are prioritizing their spending on the segment, rather than increasing spending overall. "Right now, it still generally feels more like a prioritization within current budgets; and so, we'll see what happens in January and February," she said. Companies will have to focus on spending on data foundation first and then on AI itself, she said.

Accenture reported $1 billion in Gen AI projects in the three months ending August 2024, taking its total order bookings to $3 billion in a year. Gen AI bookings made up 6.4% of the company’s overall order bookings of $18.7 billion for the quarter. To put it in perspective, Accenture’s total order bookings from Gen AI are roughly the same as the FY24 revenue of LTIMindtree Ltd, India’s sixth largest software services company.