Accenture acquires Faculty, positioning itself as direct competitor to Palantir in AI market

Accenture to buy Palantir rival, UK-based Faculty

Accenture plans to buy UK-based AI firm Faculty, a Palantir competitor, and onboard the company's CEO as Accenture's new chief technology officer. The move suggests the two companies, while partners today, could start taking each others' business. Faculty was founded in the UK by New Zealand-born physicist Marc Warner in 2014, ostensibly to make AI useful to the world and "safely deliver the AI revolution." The company works with customers on AI strategy, design, infrastructure, development, and operations and creates a computational twin of an organization to simulate and refine business decisions. Accenture is adding all 400 of Faculty's employees to its payroll, according to the press release announcing the deal. Terms of the deal - which is subject to regulatory approvals - were not disclosed. The move further positions Accenture as a direct competitor with Palantir, according to Forrester Vice president and Principal Analyst Boris Evelson. He said both Accenture and rival consultancy McKinsey are hoping to capture more of the spend that is headed to Palantir in 2026. Evelson said that, while McKinsey has built a project internally, at this stage it is the consultants' relationships with their customers that wins deals. "If I need to start from scratch, I'll go to Palantir or C3 AI, but if I'm Citibank and I have a great relationship with Accenture, Accenture already outsources about 10% of my IT and other relevant projects. If I'm the CIO and I don't go to Accenture first for something like this, then I'd be shooting myself in the foot," he told The Register. "So Accenture and Palantir, I would say, they would be direct competitors." When asked about potential competition and the role that Faculty plays, both Accenture and Palantir responded to The Register with a link to a December press release that announced Palantir and Accenture had expanded their global partnership with a specialized unit. The Accenture-Palantir Business group is supported by forward-deployed engineers from Palantir and more than 2,000 Accenture staffers who know Palantir's platforms. "The teams will work side-by-side with clients to move from siloed data to integrated, AI-powered decision making," the release states. Evelson, who described Faculty as a smaller Palantir competitor, said the soundness of the partnership will play out in the trenches. "If an enterprise wants to get Palantir, but they have a great relationship with Accenture in terms of all sorts of IT, outsourcing, integration, et cetra, then, that's a good combination," he told The Register. "But, again, if I'm an enterprise that's already entrenched with Palantir, I'm not going to switch to Accenture. If I'm an enterprise that's already is entrenched with Accenture, I'm not going to switch to McKinsey." Warner left a career in physics that included a Marie Curie Fellowship at Harvard University in quantum sensing research to move all in on AI in 2010, more than a decade before the hype. In the years since its founding in 2014, Faculty has become a go-to destination for data scientists in the UK thanks to its fellowship program that invites PhDs, master's graduates, and post doctoral students to win hands-on experience in AI, which Warner has credited with giving Faculty a chance to meet with top talent. The program received a Princess Royal Training Award in 2022, which recognizes outstanding training and skills development programs. Warner said of the 500 fellowship winners about 90 now work at Faculty. During the COVID-19 pandemic, 10 Downing Street tapped Faculty to organize the UK's response. The Faculty founder worked directly with government leaders during Prime Minister Boris Johnson's administration, and his company has been credited with saving thousands of lives by coordinating sewage data with logistics to monitor surges in the disease and provide resources when and where they were needed. Warner has been outspoken that the UK must build its own tech talent and has taken digs at "foreign tech" companies. "People are going to have to recognize that to an extent a win for a foreign tech company is a loss for British sovereignty," he told the hosts of Anglofuturism, a podcast, in April. Accenture was originally spun out of US accounting giant Arthur Andersen as its consulting arm, and still trades on the New York Stock Exchange, although it's headquartered in Dublin, Ireland. Not the UK. ®

Accenture plans to acquire UK AI firm Faculty

Faculty CEO Marc Warner is set to take over as Accenture's chief technology officer. Consultancy giant Accenture has announced plans to acquire Faculty, a UK-based firm providing AI services to major global businesses, governments and public institutions. The acquisition is set to expand Accenture's AI capabilities as the company reaps from its multibillion-dollar bet on the technology. Terms of the purchase were undisclosed. Founded in 2014, Faculty works across major industries, including energy, infrastructure, law, defence, governments, education, etc, offering its data analysis services to the likes of OpenAI, the NHS, Tide, Northern Powergrid and the UK's Ministry of Defence. During the Covid-19 pandemic, Faculty built the NHS' early warning system, which was in daily use to predict patient demand across the country and to optimally allocate critical care resources. The UK company competes in this space with the likes of Palantir and Quantexa. And as of 2021, it had raised nearly £40m. With the acquisition, Accenture is absorbing Faculty's team of more than 400 AI native professionals, including its data scientists and AI engineers, the company announced in a press release today (6 January). While, Faculty's CEO Marc Warner is set to become Accenture's chief technology officer. Before founding Faculty, Warner was a research fellow in quantum physics at Harvard and served on the court of Imperial College London and as a member of UK's AI Council. "With Faculty, we will further accelerate our strategy to bring trusted, advanced AI to the heart of our clients' businesses," said Julie Sweet, the chair and CEO of Accenture. The two companies have had a collaborative relationship since 2023, when Accenture was confirmed as a preferred implementation partner for Faculty's Frontier software. Now, the software will join Accenture's offerings. "Together with Faculty we will assemble a powerhouse of talent helping clients make AI work in the real world", commented Manish Sharma, the chief strategy and services officer at Accenture. "This will help our clients stay competitive, pursue sovereign solutions, and reinvent their operations with transparency and resilience at a critical time." Accenture is also gaining Faculty's fellowship programme, an early-career training and placement programme that helps STEM PhD and other graduates transition from academia to industry. The consultancy has said that it plans to extend the program globally. Much like other global consultancies and SaaS providers, Accenture has gone all-in on AI. The company cut hundreds of jobs in recent years as a cost-cutting as it raked up AI-related investments. Though it has since beefed up its AI talent with around 77,000 AI and data professionals in 2025 - up from 40,000 in 2023. It also has plans to increase the company's headcount. Last September, CEO Sweet told shareholders that she was cutting staff that couldn't pivot to AI-related work. Don't miss out on the knowledge you need to succeed. Sign up for the Daily Brief, Silicon Republic's digest of need-to-know sci-tech news.

Accenture To Acquire UK AI Firm Faculty To Scale Enterprise AI - Accenture (NYSE:ACN)

Accenture Plc (NYSE:ACN) announced on Tuesday that it has agreed to acquire Faculty, a UK-based artificial intelligence firm, further strengthening its push to integrate advanced AI into enterprise operations. The move reflects growing demand from businesses and governments for AI systems that are both powerful and safe to deploy. The transaction adds more than 400 AI specialists and decision intelligence capabilities to Accenture's global platform, expanding its ability to deliver secure, large-scale AI solutions for clients. Terms were not disclosed. Founded in 2014, Faculty is recognized for its application of AI in high-risk, mission-critical settings. Its work spans AI strategy, safety frameworks, and system deployment, with a focus on reducing bias, protecting data privacy, and ensuring models remain transparent and explainable. Also Read: Accenture Expands Italian Financial Services Technology Platform In addition to his role as CEO of Faculty, Marc Warner will become chief technology officer of Accenture upon closing of the transaction and join the company's Global Management Committee. Warner brings experience from academia and prior advisory roles within the UK's national AI policy landscape. Faculty's Frontier decision intelligence platform will be incorporated into Accenture's technology suite. The system connects data, AI models, and workflows to support faster decisions and is already being used with clients such as Novartis AG (NYSE:NVS) to improve clinical trial planning. Analysts have noted that Accenture's AI momentum remains impressive, even as many projects are still in early rollout phases. Investor exposure to the trend also extends to funds such as the Global X Robotics & Artificial Intelligence ETF (NASDAQ:BOTZ) and the iShares U.S. Technology ETF (NYSE:IYW). Accenture's total cash balance as of November 30, 2025, was $9.6 billion. What's Next Accenture plans to expand the Faculty's Fellowship Program globally, widening its pipeline of advanced AI talent. The acquisition is subject to regulatory approvals, with financial terms undisclosed. ACN Price Action: Accenture shares were down 0.22% at $263.39 during premarket trading on Tuesday, according to Benzinga Pro data. Read Next: Super Micro Chases AI Scale With Next-Gen Nvidia AI Platforms Image via Shutterstock ACNAccenture PLC$263.39-0.22%OverviewBOTZGlobal X Robotics & Artificial Intelligence ETF$37.780.45%IYWiShares U.S. Technology ETF$200.420.01%NVSNovartis AG$138.450.39%Market News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs

Accenture to acquire UK-based AI firm Faculty to scale AI capabilities

Accenture has agreed to acquire Faculty, a UK-based AI native services and products business built on highly technical applied AI skills and a unique decision intelligence product that features advanced simulation and optimization capabilities. The acquisition will expand Accenture's capabilities to help its clients reinvent core and critical business processes with safe and secure AI solutions that result in tangible outcomes. Founded in 2014, Faculty has a strong track record working with public and private sector clients to deploy AI solutions in the UK and other key markets. Its services -- which include AI strategy, AI safety and the design, build and implementation of high-performance AI systems -- support the scaled and safe adoption of AI by client organizations. With a longstanding commitment to AI safety, Faculty works with clients to build AI systems that are safe and ethical by design -- addressing risks such as bias, privacy and unexplainable outcomes by ensuring that AI safety is embedded within every stage of the development lifecycle from development, validation and predictions to monitoring. Faculty works with some of the world's leading AI labs, including OpenAI and Anthropic, to ensure that AI models are safe, as well as with the UK AI Security Institute and other organizations to make baseline safety assessments of general-purpose models. Upon closing of the transaction, Faculty's team of more than 400 AI native professionals, including highly qualified data scientists and AI engineers, will integrate with Accenture's teams to scale world‑class AI capabilities for clients. CEO of Faculty, Marc Warner, will become chief technology officer of Accenture and join the company's Global Management Committee. Before founding Faculty, Warner was a Research Fellow in Quantum Physics at Harvard and served on the court of Imperial College London and as a member of the UK's AI Council, an independent expert committee that provides advice to government and high-level leadership of the Artificial Intelligence (AI) ecosystem. "With Faculty, we will further accelerate our strategy to bring trusted, advanced AI to the heart of our clients' businesses. I am 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," said Julie Sweet, chair and CEO, Accenture. As part of the acquisition integration, Faculty Frontier, Faculty's enterprise decision intelligence product, will join Accenture's suite of products that help organizations make better, faster decisions by connecting data, AI models and business processes into a unified decision system. For example, Accenture and Faculty are already working together to support leading life sciences companies, such as Novartis, to use Frontier to transform the economics of clinical trial planning and execution. Marc Warner, CEO of Faculty, said, "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. 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." Faculty is known for its ability to apply AI in mission-critical settings. For example, during the Covid-19 pandemic, Faculty built the UK National Health Service's (NHS) Early Warning System. This was used daily by NHS Gold Command to accurately predict patient demand across the country, and to optimally allocate critical care resources to where they were needed most. Manish Sharma, chief strategy and services officer at Accenture, said, "Together with Faculty we will assemble a powerhouse of talent helping clients make AI work in the real world -- linking data, processes, and people so value shows up faster, orchestrated through multiple combinations of bespoke client specific solutions, partner solutions and Faculty Frontier. This will help our clients stay competitive, pursue sovereign solutions, and reinvent their operations with transparency and resilience at a critical time." Accenture will leverage Faculty's Fellowship Program, a highly structured early career training and placement program that helps promising STEM PhD and master's graduates as well as post-doctoral researchers transition from academia to industry. Building on the success of this program in the UK, Accenture plans to extend the program globally to its people as well as to clients. Accenture and Faculty have collaborated since December 2023 when Accenture was confirmed as a preferred implementation partner for Faculty Frontier. Completion of the acquisition is subject to customary closing conditions, including required regulatory approval. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.