Accenture Plc (NYSE:ACN) Chief Executive Julie Sweet says companies that fail to reinvent their operations around artificial intelligence risk losing their place at the top of the corporate world.
AI Must Deliver Real Business Value, Not Just Experiments
In the debut episode on Thursday of Fortune 500: Titans and Disruptors of Industry, Sweet told Fortune's Editor-in-Chief Alyson Shontell that AI is no longer about experiments, it must directly link to performance.
"As a CEO, you should not greenlight something that doesn't have a direct tie to your PnL or something measurable that you already measure," she said, pointing to Accenture's use of generative AI to cut idea-to-market timelines by 90%.
Reinvention, Not Incremental Change, Will Define Fortune 500 Survival
Sweet emphasized humility as an essential leadership trait in the AI era. "Humility is what allows you to be a learner. It helps you build great teams, and it allows you to see what you've done and how you led the company," she said, noting even successful strategies from six years ago are being reworked.
She pushed back against predictions of widespread Fortune 500 collapse, including venture capitalist Vinod Khosla's warning of mass corporate demise in the 2030s.
"CEOs today are focused on making AI the biggest growth opportunity and not the thing that causes their demise," she said.
Her prescription for survival: "One word, reinvention. This isn't about using AI on top of what you do today. If you're not significantly changing the way you operate, then you're not reinventing, and you're not going to capture the value."
Tech Leaders Divided on AI's Impact on Jobs
Earlier this month, Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT) co-founder Bill Gates warned that artificial intelligence was advancing at a pace that "surprised" even him, raising uncertainty about when it might replace human workers across industries.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella argued that AI would redefine cognitive labor without rendering humans irrelevant.
Nvidia Corp. (NASDAQ:NVDA) CEO Jensen Huang cautioned that employees who failed to embrace AI risked obsolescence.
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE:GS) estimated the technology could affect 300 million full-time jobs worldwide, though analysts suggested it would drive mass redefinition rather than outright replacement.
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Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.
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