Since Anthropic launched its cyber security-busting AI model Mythos in April, Accenture has fielded more than 1,000 inquiries from clients panicked about cyber defence. But while executives at the world’s largest listed IT consultancy toasted the lucrative business, Wall Street slashed 10 per cent off Accenture’s shares.
The pattern is the same every time a big advance in AI is announced, prompting a lurch downward for IT consulting shares and one of the stock market’s most ferocious debates: is AI a once-in-a-generation bonanza for IT consultants, or an existential threat?
Accenture has long thrived on technological disruption. It advised companies adopting fledgling enterprise software in the 1980s, then reinvented itself to emerge as a winner from the shift to the cloud and the digital transformation triggered by the Covid-era work-from-home boom.