Accenture ties leadership promotions to AI tools usage, tracking senior staff logins weekly

Accenture tells senior staff to use AI tools or risk losing out on leadership promotions

Accenture signage during the 2026 CES event in Las Vegas, Nevada, US, on Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2026. Accenture has told senior staff they must regularly use its AI tools to be considered for promotions for leadership roles. Associate directors and senior managers at the consultancy giant were informed that "regular adoption" of AI would be required to progress to leadership positions, according to an FT report. An Accenture spokesperson told CNBC the report was correct. They added: "Our strategy is to be the reinvention partner of choice for our clients and to be the most client-focused, AI-enabled, great place to work. "That requires the adoption of the latest tools and technologies to serve our clients most effectively." The spokesperson also confirmed that, as the FT reported, the policy had been set out in an internal email. "Use of our key tools will be a visible input to talent discussions," the email said, according to the FT. The FT reported that Accenture staff in 12 European countries were unaffected by the policy, as well as staff working in the division that handles U.S. government contracts.

Accenture 'links staff promotions to use of AI tools'

Consulting firm keen to increase uptake of technology and is reportedly monitoring adoption by workforce Accenture has reportedly started tracking staff use of its AI tools and will take this into consideration when deciding on top promotions, as the consulting company tries to increase uptake of the technology by its workforce. The company told senior managers and associate directors that being promoted to leadership roles would require "regular adoption" of artificial intelligence, according to an internal email seen by the Financial Times. The consultancy has also begun collecting data on weekly log-ins to its AI tools by some senior staff members, the FT reported. Accenture has previously said it has trained 550,000 of its 780,000-strong workforce in generative AI, up from only 30 people in 2022, and has announced it is rolling out training to all of its employees as part of its annual $1bn (£740m) annual spend on learning. Among the tools whose use will reportedly be monitored is Accenture's AI Refinery. The chief executive, Julie Sweet, has previously said this 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". The company's aggressive push into AI highlights a wider industry trend of companies using machine learning tools to help them with speeding up certain tasks so they can focus other resources elsewhere. Accenture reported better-than-expected results for its first quarter in December, as it was boosted by demand for its AI-driven services. Its latest move linking use of AI tools to promotion potential, comes only months after the New York-listed company began calling its near 800,000 employees "reinventors" in an effort to position itself as a leader in artificial intelligence. The move was criticised by some as an example of corporate jargon. The reinventor label came amid a large reorganisation across Accenture last June, when it merged its strategy, consulting, creative, technology and operations divisions into a single unit called "Reinvention Services". Sweet told investors in September that the company would "exit" employees who were not getting the hang of using AI at work. Older and more senior employees at the largest professional services companies are generally seen as more reluctant to incorporate use of AI tools into their work, while younger and more junior staff are more receptive. The Dublin-headquartered group has previously said that employees for whom "reskilling, based on our experience, is not a viable path for the skills we need" would be shown the door. Accenture announced in December that it had signed partnerships with the ChatGPT owner, OpenAI, and its rival Anthropic, the owner of the Claude chatbot, as the consulting company has looked to capitalise on growing demand for AI services.

Accenture Is Tracking Whether Employees Use AI -- And Promotions Are on the Line

The move comes as worker anxiety grows over AI-driven job disruption. Want a promotion while working at Accenture? You'd better start using the company's AI tools -- regularly. (They're watching.) The consulting giant has begun collecting data on weekly logins to its AI platforms from senior staff, and sent an internal email to managers and associate directors making it clear: moving into leadership requires "regular adoption" of artificial intelligence, according to documents seen by the Financial Times. Unlike other companies that either punish AI usage or are trying to get rid of human employees in favor of AI agents, Accenture is essentially turning AI tool usage into a KPI. One of the products under the microscope is, of course, Accenture's AI Refinery, the enterprise platform CEO Julie Sweet has been heavily promoting to investors. Accenture's business model is built on advising other companies on how to modernize, and apparently, it wants to set an example for other companies dealing with the dilemma of using AI at work. "Our strategy is to be the reinvention partner of choice for our clients and to be the most client-focused, AI-enabled, great place to work," an Accenture spokesperson told Decrypt. "That requires the adoption of the latest tools and technologies to serve our clients most effectively." The move is part of a larger internal pressure campaign to force the adoption of AI. Sweet told investors in September that employees who couldn't adapt to AI would be "exited." The company's own language describes workers for whom reskilling is not a "viable path" as candidates for separation, according to The Guardian. The login-tracking policy is the formal version of that threat. Accenture has been on an AI spending spree. It trained 550,000 of its 780,000 employees in generative AI -- up from just 30 people in 2022 -- and committed $1 billion a year to learning programs. In December, it announced partnerships with both ChatGPT creator OpenAI and Anthropic, maker of the Claude chatbot. Last June, it merged all its main divisions into a single unit it called "Reinvention Services" and started calling employees "reinventors." Just last week, Microsoft's AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman argued that most white-collar roles -- including lawyers, accountants, project managers -- could be "fully automated" by AI within 12 to 18 months. Accenture is making its consultants prove they use AI tools to keep their jobs and potentially obtain better ones, at the exact moment the people building those tools are saying the jobs may not exist much longer anyway. A Pew Research Center survey from February 2025 found 52% of U.S. workers are worried about AI's impact on the workplace, and roughly one in three think it will shrink their long-term job opportunities. ManpowerGroup's 2026 Global Talent Barometer, which covered nearly 14,000 workers across 19 countries, found that regular AI usage actually jumped 13% in 2025. Confidence in it, though, collapsed by 18%. "Workers are being handed tools without training, context, or support," ManpowerGroup's VP of Global Insights Mara Stefan told Fortune. Some 64% of those surveyed said they're staying in jobs they hate specifically out of fear that jumping ship during an AI transition is too risky. The confidence collapse hits hardest in older demographics -- exactly the group Accenture is targeting with this policy. Baby boomer confidence in AI dropped 35%, according to that survey, while Gen X confidence dropped 25%. Accenture itself acknowledges older and more senior staff are more resistant to adoption, and its solution is apparently to monitor their login frequency and dangle potential promotions over their heads. As Decrypt previously reported, a Yale Budget Lab study found the broader labor market hasn't actually seen AI-driven disruption yet. Jobs are shifting about one percentage point faster than during the early 2000s internet boom -- but it's barely measurable. The apocalypse is still pending. But the pressure on individual workers to perform AI fluency is already very real, and very measurable.

Accenture announces new AI-linked promotion rule for seniors: Check who will be affected and who are exempted

Accenture is now tying promotions for senior managers and associate directors to their regular use of company AI tools, with weekly logins being tracked for some. This aggressive policy, revealed in an internal email, reflects CEO Julie Sweet's earlier warning about employees failing to adapt to AI. Accenture has rolled out a new promotion rule that ties career growth for senior managers and associate directors to how regularly they use the company's artificial intelligence tools. The policy, shared in an internal email reported by the Financial Times, will influence upcoming summer promotion decisions and includes tracking weekly logins for some senior staff. The move follows CEO Julie Sweet's earlier warning that employees who fail to adapt to AI could be "exited" from the company. The rule directly targets senior managers and associate directors who are aiming for leadership roles. According to the internal email, "use of our key tools will be a visible input to talent discussions." One of the platforms under watch is Accenture's AI Refinery, and in some cases the company has started tracking how often employees log in to its AI systems each week. This makes Accenture one of the few large professional services firms to formally connect promotions with measurable AI usage. Not everyone in the organisation will fall under the new requirement. Staff based in 12 European countries are exempt, as are employees working on US federal government contracts. The company has not publicly detailed the specific legal or regulatory reasons behind these exemptions. The shift has triggered mixed reactions inside the firm. Two people familiar with the changes told the Financial Times they see some of the AI tools as "broken slop generators." Another staff member said they would "quit immediately" if the rule directly affected them. The response reflects a wider challenge across consulting firms: senior professionals are often slower to adopt new technologies than junior employees. Executives at three Big Four firms told the Financial Times that encouraging partners and senior managers to use AI tools has been harder than training younger staff. Many senior professionals are more comfortable with long-established workflows and less inclined to change how they work. Julie Sweet had already signalled this direction when she told investors that Accenture would "exit" employees for whom reskilling on AI was not a viable path. The new promotion criteria now put that stance into formal HR practice. The firm says it has trained about 550,000 of its nearly 780,000 employees in generative AI and spends around $1 billion each year on learning and development. It has also partnered with OpenAI and Anthropic to strengthen its AI capabilities. The urgency behind the move is tied to business pressures. Accenture's share price has dropped by roughly 42% over the past year, pushing the company to double down on its AI-first strategy. It has even started calling its workforce "reinventors" as part of this shift. For employees hoping to move up the ladder, the message is clear: using AI is no longer optional, it is now part of the promotion checklist.