In a landscape where corporations are scrambling to adopt generative AI, one of Accenture\u2019s top executives responsible for artificial intelligence (AI) offered a stark reality check to business leaders: it\u2019s not a side project.<\/p>\n
During the recent Fortune Brainstorm AI conference, Arnab Chakraborty<\/a>, Chief Responsible AI Officer at Accenture, argued that the era<\/a> of treating technology roadmaps as distinct from corporate goals is over. \u201cThe data and AI strategy is not a separate strategy, it is the business strategy,\u201d he said, emphasizing that for modern organizations, these elements must be the foundation of the entire operation.<\/p>\n This insight stems from a massive, ongoing collaboration between Accenture and Australian telecommunications giant Telstra. In January 2025, the two companies moved beyond a traditional client-consultant relationship to form a dedicated joint venture<\/a>, a move designed to bypass the sluggishness of typical corporate structures. Dayle Stevens<\/a>, a Telstra data and AI executive, told moderator Jeremy Kahn that the company had a five-year strategic roadmap but realized the market was moving too fast for standard timelines. \u201cWe thought we could do what we wanted to do within five years and we wanted to do it within two.\u201d<\/p>\n To achieve this, the partners had to break free from the rigidity of the annual budget cycle that plagues most large enterprises. Chakraborty said the JV has been a \u201cvery bold move\u201d and \u201cindustry first,\u201d both for telecoms and consulting. \u201cWe had to form a new company, you know, where this whole setup of data and AI has been formed and what it is doing is, it is creating a new identity.\u201d He said it\u2019s still very integrated with Telstra but is bringing in innovation from the consulting world and Silicon Valley. <\/p>\n Fixing the foundation first<\/p>\n Chakraborty argued that, based on what he\u2019s learned, when forming an agentic organization it\u2019s important to not just think about the technology. \u201cThink about the people and the culture. It is so paramount.\u201d This is important, he added, because in order to drive AI adoption, \u201cyou are actually redefining the culture of the organization.\u201d<\/p>\n When it gets to the tech, of course, you have to clean up the mess of legacy systems. Chakraborty warned leaders not to \u201cget carried away with the shiny AI\u201d and neglect the unglamorous work of data foundations.<\/p>\n Stevens offered a candid look at the technical debt facing large organizations. Telstra, like many established enterprises, had allowed complexity to spiral, operating with \u201c80 different data platforms\u201d because various departments had historically sourced data independently.<\/p>\n \u201cYou can\u2019t get data quality without improving that data ecosystem,\u201d Dale said. The company is now in the midst of a radical simplification to consolidate those 80 platforms down to just three. They have already reduced the count to 27 and plan to finish the consolidation within 18 months.<\/p>\n Flexibility and empathy<\/p>\n The annual cycle can be a trap, Stevens added, with big corporations locking in spending plans every 12 months but \u201cAI moves really fast.\u201d She said that an internal disruption for Telstra is that it has to be \u201cmuch more adaptive. We have to be much more agile to be able to pivot and change as new technologies and opportunities come out.\u201d<\/p>\n Stevens recounted how Telstra rolled out a generative AI tool called \u201cAsk Telstra\u201d to frontline staff. Instead of framing it as an efficiency play, they introduced it as a solution to the employees\u2019 biggest complaint, or \u201cpain points.\u201d The response was overwhelming, she said: \u201cWe literally got a standing ovation,\u201d suggesting that workers are ready to adopt AI, but there are lots of kinks to work out, and their employer needs to be aware and supportive of that.<\/p>\n The Telstra executive also said the Australian media was taken by the narrative that AI would replace jobs and so they had introduced an \u201cAI Academy\u201d to communicate to workers that they would be actively reskilling people. When you focus on the human aspect, and those pain points, Stevens added, it\u2019s very well received.<\/p>\n Earlier in the panel, Chakraborty highlighted another human element that is falling short in the AI narrative. \u201cI would say trust is critical,\u201d he said. \u201cYou know, today the challenge on [return on investment] is because of lack of trust,\u201d he added, alluding to how many billions have been spent on data-center infrastructure to support AI adoption, without an underlying faith in the returns to come. It also extends, he added, to \u201chow do you focus on trust by design of AI systems? And how are you enabling your people and the organization to alleviate the trust along with your stakeholders? So how have you done that?\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s a question that the executives strongly recommend every business leader consider. \u201cI think the leadership commitment to \u2018walk the talk\u2019 is extremely important,\u201d Chakraborty said. \u201c[The] CEO and the CEO\u2019s direct reports [have to be] fully behind this. There is a pull from them. They are personally walking the talk. I think that goes a long way \u2026 in bringing the people along.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In a landscape where corporations are scrambling to adopt generative AI, one of Accenture\u2019s top executives responsible for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":354220,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[16626,256,254,255,64,63,16546,30601,5447,2458,272,13525,194298,75899,105],"class_list":["post-354219","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-accenture","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-big-data","tag-brainstorm-ai","tag-chief-executive-officer-ceo","tag-data","tag-digital-transformation","tag-financial-results","tag-fortune-brainstorm","tag-restructuring","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354219","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=354219"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354219\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/354220"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=354219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=354219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=354219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}