Accenture acquires Faculty, poaches CEO in bid to drive client AI adoption

Accenture has announced plans to acquire UK-based AI company Faculty as the consultancy looks to drive client adoption of the technology.

In a statement confirming the deal, Accenture said Faculty FrontierTM, the company’s enterprise-grade decision intelligence platform, will be integrated with Accenture’s core product suites.

This, the consultancy said, will help organizations make “better, faster decisions by connecting data, AI models, and business processes into a unified decision system”.

Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed and the deal is subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory approval, according to Accenture.

More than 400 Faculty employees will move over to Accenture following the acquisition. This includes Faculty chief executive Marc Warner, who will assume the role of chief technology officer (CTO) and joining the company’s global management committee.

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

“I’m pleased to welcome the Faculty team to Accenture and look forward to Marc's contribution shaping our technology vision and strategy as Chief Technology Officer."

What Accenture gets with the Faculty acquisition

Faculty and Accenture have maintained long-standing ties dating back to 2023, with the consultancy confirmed as Faculty’s preferred implementation partner for the FrontierTM platform.

The UK-based firm was founded in 2014 and has rapidly established itself as one of the country’s leading AI companies, capitalizing on the generative AI boom in recent years and working closely with both public and private sector clients to drive adoption.

The company helped build the NHS’ Early Warning System during the Covid-19 pandemic, for example. The system was used by NHS Gold Command to predict patient demand across the UK and help allocate care resources.

Notably, Faculty offers AI consulting services for clients, placing a particular focus on safe and responsible AI adoption, and has worked with OpenAI and Anthropic to improve ethical development and AI safety for frontier models.

Commenting on the deal, Warner said the company aims to continue its AI safety focus post-acquisition.

“Our vision has always been a world in which safe AI delivers widespread benefits to humanity. We have spent the last ten years supporting our clients to bring this world about, step by step,” he said.

“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.”

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