Accenture PLC Q4 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

The following is excerpted from the question-and-answer section of the transcript.

Question: Tien-Tsin Huang - JPMorgan Chase & Co - Analyst : Good presentation here. My first question, I'll ask on visibility on revenue growth, if that's okay. Just would love to hear your thoughts on visibility compared to the last couple of years, given the backlog, which is quite big with large deals. You have the pipeline, of course. And then what you're seeing on discretionary spending given the economic backdrop as you see it?

Question: Tien-Tsin Huang - JPMorgan Chase & Co - Analyst : Okay. Just maybe, Julie, I'd like your AI remarks. Can you guess -- I want to dig in a little bit more, if you don't mind. Just give us your latest thoughts on AI-driven productivity and those gains and how they might unfold? I get that question quite a bit from investors. Do you see potential deflationary effects? And how might that impact Accenture services, both positively and negatively?

Question: David Koning - Robert W. Baird & Co Inc - Analyst : Yes, great job and great to see GenAI bookings reaccelerate. A question, I guess, a little like Tien-Tsin's question. Just wanted to ask about the balance between GenAI and managed services. You do a ton of managed services work. You get to know client operations really well. . You can probably go in and recommend GenAI work and gain a lot of share there, but then maybe display some managed services, and how does that really balance between consulting and managed services over time? And does the net of it all push revenue and margins higher?

Question: David Koning - Robert W. Baird & Co Inc - Analyst : Great. No, that's super helpful. And then maybe just a quick follow-up, are you expecting about a similar Q4 headwind through the first three quarters of this year and then anniversary it in Q4 and then kind of going forward, maybe not having much impact at all? Is that kind of how you're modeling it?

Question: Jamie Friedman - Susquehanna International Group, LLP - Analyst : I too appreciate your prepared remarks really thought-provoking. I wanted to ask, Julie, about the way you're defining advanced AI. And I think at the transcript (technical difficulty) physical AI, I'm actually asking about why you're saying you won't -- you're not including data because we've sort of been train the data is foundational. So why is the data component not in the definition of advanced AI?

Question: Jamie Friedman - Susquehanna International Group, LLP - Analyst : Got it. And then going further, will you say that every new wave of technology has a time where you have to train and retool and your core competence is to do that at scale. So I'm just wondering, relative to prior technology, and you alluded to some of this in prior architectures, but how do you think about that requirement, which you have tremendous mind share at, which is to do technology at scale, how do you think about this relative to some of the previous technological evolutions?

Question: Bryan Bergin - Cowen Group, Inc. - Analyst : My first question on GenAI impact. Can you just speak about client behavior in seeking to use GenAI and agentic solutions more themselves? You mentioned the efficiencies from the tech in areas like software development. I'm curious if you're seeing more clients seeking to then benefit to do that more themselves versus with third parties? And also curious if you've seen clients that thought they could do it themselves 6, 12 months ago and then realize they do need help and they return to you.

Question: Bryan Bergin - Cowen Group, Inc. - Analyst : Okay. That's helpful. And then a follow-up on the business optimization plan. Can you talk about maybe assumed savings you expect to achieve from this optimization plan and how it may help you evolve your operations? I'm specifically curious if you see that kind of combined with GI adoption internally, allowing you to operate at a sustainably higher utilization as that did tick up this quarter.

Question: Jim Schneider - The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. - Analyst : Julie, I just wanted to follow-on on your comment that you expect headcount to grow during the course of the fiscal year across all regions? Can you maybe kind of frame for us the magnitude of that and the timing for it given the context of some of the other business optimization actions you're seeing, where would you expect headcount growth to land exiting the year perhaps?

Question: Jim Schneider - The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. - Analyst : Great. And then as a follow-up on that, if you can sort of maybe talk about the net impact of AI using internally to optimize your own work, your own business. Utilization, as I think you mentioned earlier, 93%, that's basically hitting a new record. But when would we expect that to see that either reflected in even higher utilization or potentially gross margins even though we don't -- you don't manage directly to that?