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Accenture shares fall to lowest since 2017 as AI threat mounts

IT consultancy hit by concerns technology will hurt its business model

The Accenture pavilion is lit up at night, with people visible inside and a black car parked in front.Accenture’s new bookings fell to $19.3bn in the three months to the end of May, a decline of 3% on the same period last year© Bloomberg

Stephen Foley in New York

PublishedJune 18 2026

UpdatedJune 18 2026

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Accenture shares fell to their lowest level since 2017 in early trading on Thursday after the consulting group cut its revenue forecasts, stoking investor fears that the rapid advance of AI is undermining traditional IT and outsourcing businesses.

The company said that new bookings fell to $19.3bn in the three months to the end of May, a decline of 3 per cent in local currency terms compared with the same period last year.

It forecast full-year revenue growth of no more than 4 per cent, compared with its previous guidance of 3 to 5 per cent.

Accenture shares fell more than 15 per cent after the market open, extending a decline that has accelerated over the past year as concern mounted about the impact of AI. Its market capitalisation has fallen from more than $200bn in the wake of a post-Covid consulting boom to about $82bn.

Line chart of Share price, $ showing Accenture shares have slumped

Chief executive Julie Sweet said that Accenture was continuing to win business from companies seeking advice on adopting AI, even as investors fret the technology will allow clients to cut consultants out or that it will create new competition from AI start-ups.

She blamed the disappointing figures in part on the war in the Middle East, which she said had hit revenue by $100mn more than expected in the most recent quarter. As well as the direct impact on its business in the region, the war had led to slower decision-making by clients elsewhere, she said.

Accenture and its peers have been plagued by several years of weak spending by companies on discretionary consulting projects, which some investors see as an indicator of the disruption being wrought by AI.

Surinder Thind, analyst at Jefferies, called the latest results disappointing. “Questions around the resiliency of demand in an AI-first world are likely to be amplified,” he wrote in a note to clients, “especially in light of recent advancements in AI model and agentic capabilities”.

Sweet said that corporate IT budgets had not risen overall. “Even with AI, they’re spending it differently, but they haven’t been increasing,” she told analysts.

That means Accenture has been searching for growth in new areas, and dramatically increasing its budget for acquisitions, which will hit $9bn this fiscal year, more than double its original plan.

The company on Thursday unveiled three acquisitions expanding its offering to companies that are racing to shore up their cyber defences against new AI models that can find and exploit security vulnerabilities.

Accenture said it would buy runZero, a vulnerability assessment firm; NetRise, a device security specialist; and a majority stake in Dragos, a specialist in operational technology cyber security. The deals have a combined enterprise value of $4.2bn. In January it agreed to buy UK AI start-up Faculty in a $1bn deal.

Video: The AI future we want | FT Standpoint

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