‘Super Bullish’: Accenture, Nvidia Go Big on Agentic AI, New Business Group

Accenture and Nvidia aim to take enterprises’ AI games to the next level with the expansion of their partnership and the creation of a new Nvidia Business Group within the behemoth consultancy.

In general, organizations struggle with AI’s cost, complexity, amount of data and lack of talent readiness, said Lan Guan, chief AI officer at Accenture. Because of that, Accenture estimates that only 10% of companies have been able to go all-in on generative AI. The Accenture-Nvidia partnership will address those challenges, further bolstering Accenture’s AI Refinery efforts, she said. (Accenture debuted its AI Refinery in July.)

“Never has there been a more exciting moment in AI than the moment we are in right now,” Guan said during an Oct. 1 media briefing.

Accenture's Lan Guan

That’s because, through Accenture and Nvidia's work together, the AI Refinery will deliver agentic AI capabilities, meaning that the systems can act and create without human intervention, churning out customized information that meets specific needs. 

Accenture will make AI Refinery available on all public and private cloud platforms; AI Refinery also will integrate with other Accenture units. Altogether, “we can actually develop specialized capabilities that can independently and autonomously interact or act to make progress against … goals or humans intention,” Guan said. “These kinds of AI agents also have self-reflecting capabilities.”

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In other words, she said, the AI Refinery agents can learn from mistakes and improve their outputs.

“I believe that this is the future we are heading toward — AI that does not just respond, but also actually learns, improves and works as part of the team,” Guan said. “This is a really big deal. It’s a leap forward in the progression of the technology that is going to change the way we think about productivity and innovation.”

Accenture expects its agentic AI will work “side by side with humans” to make decisions and “execute with precision across even the most complex workflows,” Guan said.

Accenture and Nvidia Start New Business Group

Because of all of that, Accenture expanded its partnership with Nvidia to create the Accenture Nvidia Business Group. 

For his part, Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of Nvidia, expects the move to help businesses and nations “drive unprecedented productivity and growth.” Nvidia stands out as the most prominent AI GPU and software provider in the industry. The company has joined forces with myriad global cloud computing brands, as well as smaller names at a rapid pace since the gen AI craze kicked off in early 2023. 
At Accenture, specifically, the Nvidia business unit will “deliver real results for organizations using advanced technologies like agentic AI,” Guan said. 

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Accenture will staff the new division with its 30,000 Nvidia-trained AI practitioners.

Here’s a peek at how Accenture is structuring its AI Refinery with Nvidia:

All in all, Guan said, “the next wave of agentic AI will be a huge step forward. It will be a game-changer in how our clients reinvent their business.”

Julie Sweet, chair and CEO of Accenture, concurred.

“Accenture AI Refinery will create opportunities for companies to reimagine their processes and operations, discover new ways of working, and scale AI solutions across the enterprise to help drive continuous change and create value,” she said.

Accenture and Nvidia: ‘Super Bullish’ on Revenue Prospects

Much of that traction will come from making AI more affordable. To that point, Justin Boitano, vice president of enterprise AI at Nvidia, said on Tuesday that his company’s high-performance technologies will help organizations to reduce costs around AI. As a result of that, combined with Accenture’s consulting and managed services, AI adoption will soar, he predicted.

Nvidia's Justin Boitano

“Our friends at Accenture are … the trusted adviser of the C-suite for every global enterprise,” Boitano said. “And I think this is an acknowledgement that every business strategy for the next decade is going to include a generative AI strategy. And so the partnership and the work that we're doing here is really going to reshape what's possible across the enterprise.”

On the financial front, Accenture and Nvidia both expect to see earnings go up thanks to their expanded partnership. Nvidia will benefit from sales of its GPUs and software, while Accenture believes it will reap significant services and product revenue.

“We are super bullish about the projected return on this partnership,” Guan said.

Boitano agreed. Generative AI, he said, “represents the biggest platform shift of our lifetimes.” Working together, therefore, is “going to turn into a lot of business for both companies.”