AI Fails to Deliver, Consultants Step in with Human Expertise

The AI industry is facing a problem - its promises are not being met. According to Julie Sweet, CEO of Accenture, clients are telling her that despite the hype around AI, it's not living up to expectations. 'We promised AI can do that,' she said. 'And they're like, we get it, except it's not happening, help us make it happen.'

Accenture and Google Cloud have formed a new unit, called Accenture Gemini Enterprise Business Group, which will put engineers inside client offices to help deploy Google's Gemini Enterprise platform. This is the fifth version of this idea, with Microsoft launching Frontier in July, committing $2.5bn and 6,000 engineers to enterprise AI deployment.

The model is not new - Palantir popularized the concept of forward-deployed engineers, where experts are sent to client sites to help deploy technology. But what's significant about this latest development is that Accenture is on both sides of the equation - it's a named partner in Microsoft Frontier and now the anchor partner in Google Cloud's version.

This partnership highlights the scarcity of people who can install AI systems inside companies, rather than just selling models. The platform companies are paying a consultancy to train its own staff on their software, rather than the other way round.