Accenture's Julie Sweet on AI's potential and India's growing role

Accenture CEO Julie Sweet highlighted AI's transformative power at the India AI Impact Summit, praising India's workforce. She urged public-private partnerships to ensure SMEs can access AI, calling it a critical engine for global growth.

The Chair and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Accenture, Julie Sweet on Thursday underscored the transformative potential of Artificial Intelligence (AI), highlighting recognition of the importance of broad global partnerships to capture the incredible potential of AI and address the risks.

Addressing a keynote session at the India AI Impact Summit 2026 at Bharat Mandapam, Sweet highlighted India's central role in the AI-driven future and lauded the company's workforce in the country. "At Accenture, we're incredibly proud to have over 350,000 and growing reinventors here in India. The firm also operates one of the world's largest AI workforces integrated across global hubs," she said.

Fostering AI Adoption in SMEs

Sweet also stressed equitable access, urging public-private partnerships to ensure small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) benefit from AI adoption. She noted that SMEs account for about half of global GDP and 70 percent of employment in the Global South.

"We must commit to providing access to the technology and the talent for small and medium-sized Enterprises. If we are to use AI as an engine for growth, we need to make sure that the engine for growth has teeth. Those size Enterprises have access 50 per cent of the world's GDP, are small and medium-sized Enterprises, and in the global South, it's 70 per cent of employment," she said. "To do so, there will be lots of business opportunities. So many Industries will serve small and medium-sized enterprises, but that will not be enough. Private and public partnerships will be critical to making sure there's access," she added.

Guiding Perspectives for the AI Era

Sweet outlined three guiding perspectives for the AI era: using AI to drive growth, embracing unprecedented reinvention by companies and countries, and ensuring "humans in the lead, not humans in the loop."

Lessons from Past Tech Shifts

Drawing parallels with earlier technological shifts, Sweet referenced a 2013 Oxford University study that warned 47 percent of US jobs were at risk of automation. "Similar concerns accompanied the rise of robotic process automation (RPA), yet adoption ultimately created new roles and expanded industries. We used RPA to automate thousands of jobs... and we created many, many more jobs," she stated.

Citing Accenture's growth, Sweet said the firm expanded from roughly 275,000 employees and USD 29 billion in revenue in 2013 to over 750,000 employees and USD 70 billion in revenue today.

AI as a Driver for Business Value

Emphasising AI's business value, Sweet pointed to Accenture's latest C-suite survey across 20 countries, where 78 percent of executives identified growth as AI's greatest benefit. "AI must make the impossible possible, enabling new products, services, and performance levels. Sweet highlighted examples across sectors, including large language models reshaping consumer engagement, and AI accelerating pharmaceutical innovation by potentially reducing drug development timelines," she said.

Workforce Reinvention and Education

Calling the AI agenda "unprecedented," Sweet urged companies to reinvent operations, invest in workforce reskilling, and commit to sustained entry-level hiring. "AI fundamentally is changing what an entry-level job looks like," she said.

She further called on governments to prioritise lifelong learning and embed AI education early. Sweet commended India's efforts to integrate AI into primary education and advocated for global standards on AI safety and deployment to enable cross-border scalability.

The Importance of Leadership

"Technology, no matter how powerful, is only a tool," Sweet said, concluding that leadership -- defined by excellence, confidence, and humility will determine how AI shapes the future. (ANI)

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by Asianet Newsable English staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)