Bryan Keane: Got it, got it. And then, Julie. Just thinking about the clients need to update their data in order to leverage AI and scale. Why isn’t that translating into stronger demand in the business, you would think that everybody would turn-around and spend considerably on short-term to get that ramp-up in order to get AI to leverage it, but it doesn’t quite translate. I’m just trying to figure out the disconnect there?
Julie Sweet: Yes, so there is two things. So first of all, it’s about prioritization. Right? So their overall constrained on spending. So, you make choices as opposed to it being additive. So they are not able to allocate extra budget, they’re prioritizing their budget. So you’re seeing more of a substitution right now as opposed to, hey, we need to do this, let’s add to the budget and that’s tied to the uncertain macro, that’s putting people constraint. I had one banker say, if the corporates have put themselves on a diet, given the macro. Right? The second thing, Bryan is, you have to remember that you can’t just jump to the great data foundation. You need to be in the cloud. You’ve got to have modern platforms. And so what you should read into the higher clients — the clients during these higher bookings rate is that, they’re doing the big transformations oftentimes to be ready to put in the data foundation, right?
There’s only still 40% of workloads are in the cloud. 20% of those roughly haven’t been modernized. Many of our clients haven’t put in the platform, if you don’t have the major ERP platforms that are modern, you don’t create a data foundation to fuel GenAI in isolation. So you’ve got to build the digital core. And as we’ve said, there’s a lot more to go. And that’s what’s driving these larger complex transformations like, people will not like to do these big transformations in a sense of the other big, they’re hard, they’re complicated and they need to do them in order to ultimately be able to use the AI, not just in a part of the business or as a proof-of-concept, but really to transform and get the value they now see and so it’s — again, you can’t jump to AI, you’ve got to put all the pieces, and a lot of clients aren’t there yet.
Which is our opportunity.
Bryan Keane: Got it. Thank you for taking the questions.
KC McClure: Thanks, Bryan.
Julie Sweet: Thanks, Bryan.
Operator: Your next question comes from the line of James Faucette from Morgan Stanley. Please go-ahead.
James Faucette: Great. Thank you very much. Wanted to follow-up on the questions around, particularly AI, etcetera. I recognize like everybody is kind of at different stages. How should we think about: first, the timeline in terms of preparing and getting ready to implement news solutions, etcetera, and then moving into the full implementation? And how we should think about that affecting Accenture’s business? And like you mentioned, you’ve talked about some record bookings or the number of new customers over $100 million, like how that will ramp-in the timeframe?
Julie Sweet: Yes, so maybe just — let me just start with like the strategy around capturing the growth opportunity from GenAI. So, this is the same playbook that we have used in every wave of new technology evolution. When we went from mainframe to client-server then to cloud and Software as a Service and then to RPA and AI driven automation when you saw things like myWizard and SynOps. We have the same strategy, the strategy starts with, we want to be the first-mover to help our clients use the technology. And that’s why what we’re doing with our investments of $3 billion to create solutions for them and you see that coming through with our sales in Generative AI, which, as I’ve said on earlier, are the fastest we’ve ever seen in sort of these new technologies where there’s a lot of interest and we’re the leader.
So we want to be the first-mover in helping our clients use it. The second part of our strategy is to be the first-mover in using the technology itself to serve our clients. And we did that would like the digital, with AI automation, with all of our platforms. And with that said, it’s a proven formula, because if we invest big to be early and be the first-mover, then we’re positioned to capture all the opportunity in our — with our clients, because they need to adapt it and transform. And as I just went through, that requires a lot the digital core, then you’ve got to actually use it to change new ways of working to upskill your talent and build new capabilities like responsible AI. When we are able to be the first-mover, which we are already starting now to use GenAI and how we deliver, that enhances our competitive position.
It makes us more differentiated and, of course, it also then allows our clients overtime the more we use the GenAI to achieve the results they need at a lower cost, which frees up their investment capacity to do the massive reinvention. And of course, we are in the best positioned to be their partner as they reinvest in using the tech and AI to [Technical Difficulty] lot of the digital core that’s got to-be-built, you can’t jump that step. It’s not a magic technology. But then as you build it, you then have to go function by function to change the ways you work to actually get the productivity and the growth. So we really see this as being kind of the next decade of what our clients are going to be focused on and we are positioning ourselves to be their partner and be the first-mover in both places.
