Accenture shares fall to lowest since 2017 as AI threat mounts | Hacker News Reader

Accenture shares fall to lowest since 2017 as AI threat mounts

ft.com

14 pointsroot-parent13 comments

Consulting firms will shrink, no doubt. Question is rather by what degree and that would depend on how much of their project inflow can actually be automated away. Perhaps strategic consulting is well positioned. They shine in situations that weren't anticipated like the chip shortage during covid. Automotive companies were scrambling to secure capacity allocations and they needed someone with relationships on the ground. Essentially lots of emotional work at the end. When stakes are high and trust is essential, human-to-human is still what counts.

Yeah, it seems strange to me that otherwise smart people here started in engaging in short-sighted takes about starting a dev shop with a friend to get ahead of the AI curve.

No one really seems to want to answer the simple question: "Why would anyone be willing to buy your AI slop when there is no barrier for a company to generate their own with the same or lower cost?"

True. I guess it somewhat stems from the general dislike of consulting you find in the tech community.

It is either going to Palantir or the Saaspocalypse - a bs. industry is finally facing its reckoning.

I don't know what you're talking about.

Everybody I know, who is working for Accenture, has a lot of expertise and had outstanding degrees (not only on paper) for a reason.

If we had enough resources I would prefer working with them everyday over the surrogate counseling by an AI.

My bet: as soon as AI companies aren't able to subsidize anymore, we will see a renaissance of IT consulting.

I had never heard anybody associating expertise with Accenture...

That was in the past. Now they would just prompt LLMs on your behalf for a fat fee. You might as well do it yourself and spend that fee on extra tokens.

Appearance is part of the game.

Read "Bonuses" at the end of the article: https://medium.com/p/7a577eba4f3e

It's not "appearances". I know all the guys I meant since university.

All of them were top notch PhDs. Physics. CS. Some were excellent teachers even before graduation. Others were at the leading edge of ML even two decades ago.

In short: it's not a superficial impression as a customer. I know their pros and cons from studying to social life during and after graduation, early career, ...

So, my POV is personal experience. Your POV is gossip?

Your POV can be biased. I don't have an insider view, just what media investigates.

> as soon as AI companies aren't able to subsidize anymore, we will see a renaissance of IT consulting

I think the price that LLMs have to get to for companies to return to paying consulting rates is much higher than you think. Claude Code at $2000/month is roughly one day of a top consultant's rate. (And this omits the possibility of companies make it a capex by hosting open source models)

my prediction, companies like accenture will go out of business in 24-48 months

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