Accenture has announced its agreement to acquire Faculty, a UK-based AI-native services and products company, in a move designed to significantly scale its advanced, safe, and secure AI capabilities. Faculty is known for its applied AI expertise and its proprietary decision intelligence platform, Faculty Frontier™, which enables complex simulation, forecasting, and optimization. The acquisition strengthens Accenture’s ability to help clients transform core business processes by embedding trusted AI directly into operations and decision-making.
Faculty’s Expertise and Track Record
Founded in 2014, Faculty has built a strong reputation for deploying AI systems across both public and private sectors in the UK and internationally. The company provides end-to-end AI services, including AI strategy, system design, and implementation, with a focus on scaling high-performance AI responsibly. A core differentiator of Faculty’s work is its emphasis on AI safety, ensuring models are developed and deployed with safeguards addressing bias, privacy, and the risk of unexplainable outcomes throughout design, validation, and monitoring.
Collaborations and Safety Initiatives
Faculty works closely with leading AI research organizations, including OpenAI and Anthropic, to help ensure AI models are safe for enterprise and public-sector use. The company also collaborates with the UK AI Security Institute and other partners to evaluate baseline safety for general-purpose AI models. These engagements reflect Faculty’s long-standing focus on building AI systems that meet rigorous safety and governance standards.
Integration and Leadership
Following the close of the transaction, Faculty’s team of more than 400 AI specialists will join Accenture, expanding its global AI delivery and research capabilities. Faculty CEO Marc Warner will become Accenture’s chief technology officer and join its Global Management Committee. Warner brings a background in quantum physics research at Harvard, advisory work with Imperial College London, and service on the UK government’s AI Council, adding deep technical and policy expertise to Accenture’s leadership.
Strategic Impact for Clients
Accenture plans to integrate Faculty Frontier™ into its broader AI offering to help organizations unify data, models, and workflows for faster, more informed decision-making. The platform is already being used by clients such as Novartis to improve clinical trial planning and execution economics. Accenture CEO Julie Sweet stated that the acquisition accelerates the company’s strategy to embed trusted, advanced AI at the core of clients’ businesses, driving measurable outcomes rather than experimentation alone.
Mission and Vision
Faculty has consistently applied AI in mission-critical environments, most notably through its work on the NHS Early Warning System during the COVID-19 pandemic. The system enabled daily forecasting of hospital demand and supported more effective allocation of critical care resources across the UK. Warner noted that joining Accenture allows Faculty to help clients move beyond isolated AI projects and instead pursue end-to-end AI transformation in a safe and responsible way.
Global Talent Development
Accenture will also scale Faculty’s Fellowship Program, which transitions top STEM graduates and post-doctoral researchers from academia into industry roles. Originally developed in the UK, the program is expected to expand globally to support Accenture’s growing AI workforce. Manish Sharma, Accenture’s chief strategy and services officer, emphasized that the combination of Accenture and Faculty creates a deep bench of AI talent capable of delivering resilient, enterprise-grade AI solutions at scale.
Accenture and Faculty have worked together since December 2023, when Accenture became the preferred partner for implementing Faculty Frontier™. Completion of the acquisition remains subject to customary closing conditions, including regulatory approvals, and financial terms were not disclosed. The transaction underscores both companies’ shared commitment to accelerating safe and responsible AI adoption for global enterprises.