Global tech consultant Accenture has issued a blunt directive to its workers: learn to use artificial intelligence or prepare to lose your job.

The company has already slashed 11,000 workers in the three months to August, including 10 per cent of its Australian staff, and warned it will “exit on a compression timeline” any employees who cannot be reskilled in AI.

The move is part of a sweeping restructure aimed at putting AI at the centre of Accenture’s operations, with the company planning to retrain its global workforce in AI and then offer that expertise to clients worldwide.

Accenture chief executive officer Julie Sweet said in a September earnings call that AI is now “part of everything we do” and that employees must “retrain and retool” at speed.

“We are investing in upskilling our reinventors, which is our primary strategy,” Sweet said.

“Our number one strategy is upskilling, given the skills we need, and we’ve had a lot of experience in upskilling, we’re trying to, in a very compressed timeline, where we don’t have a viable path for skilling, sort of exiting people so we can get more of the skills in we need,” Sweet said.

AI is part of everything we do

According to Sweet, 550,000 Accenture employees have already been reskilled in generative AI, but the organisation has reduced its global workforce from 791,000 to about 779,000 in the last three months.

Accenture Australia’s workforce has dropped to 5,400 as of March this year, falling from 6,000 last year and a peak of nearly 6,600 in 2023.

This is part of Accenture’s overall strategy to prioritise AI services.

“We are reinventing what we sell, how we deliver, how we partner and how we operate Accenture,” Sweet said.

“In short, on-the-ground, advanced AI is becoming a part of everything we do.”

In the 2023 financial year, Accenture had 40,000 staff focusing on AI and data, with 30 people working on a “handful” of generative AI tasks.

Today, the company has 77,000 AI and data professionals and the company has worked on more than 6,000 advanced AI projects.

“There is so much demand, and the technology is moving faster,” Sweet said.

“So, the more advanced skills and the new types of skills are coming faster. And that’s why we’re being very decisive.

“Every new wave of technology has a time where you have to train and retool. Accenture’s core competency is to do that at scale.

“Every CEO, board and the C-suite recognise that advanced AI is critical to the future.”

According to its earnings report, Accenture’s AI consulting work has generated $3.9 billion ($US2.6 billion) in the last six months.

The job cuts follow Accenture’s billion-dollar acquisition of Australian cyber firm CyberCX which will add 1,400 staff and hundreds of banking, government and infrastructure clients to its local business.

AI-based job cuts

A number of other tech giants have also announced large-scale job cuts this year, many in response to the rise of AI and increased automation in the workplace.

Tech workers are facing job cuts at ANZ, NAB and Bendigo Bank, while ANZ has denied its lay-offs are related to AI.

In August the Commonwealth Bank was forced to backtrack on planned job cuts due to AI, admitting it made an “error”. It had planned to cut 45 customer service jobs and use AI in their place instead.

Late last year, tech giant Cisco announced it would be cutting 7 per cent of its workforce due to a pivot towards AI and cybersecurity, and Intel announced 15,000 jobs would be cut to save billions of dollars after “disappointing” financial results.

Meta earlier this year said it would be laying off about 3,600 of its lowest performing workers as part of “more extensive performance-based cuts during this cycle”.