Accenture Acquires UK Faculty in Major AI Push; Founder Marc Warner Named Global CTO

In a move that signals a radical restructuring of its technology leadership, global consulting giant Accenture announced on Tuesday that it has agreed to acquire Faculty, the UK’s leading independent AI firm.

The deal, terms of which were not disclosed, is more than a standard "acqui-hire." In a surprising shake-up, Faculty’s co-founder and CEO, Dr. Marc Warner, will not just join the fold but will immediately ascend to the role of Chief Technology Officer (CTO) for Accenture, joining its Global Management Committee.

The Deal at a Glance
The acquisition brings one of Europe’s most prestigious AI labs under the Accenture umbrella, adding approximately 400 "AI-native" professionals to its workforce.

The "Frontier" Platform: Accenture will integrate Faculty Frontier, the startup’s flagship "Decision Intelligence" operating system. Unlike chatbots that generate text, Frontier is designed to simulate business outcomes and optimize decisions—a capability already used by the NHS to manage hospital capacity during the pandemic.

A New CTO: The appointment of Warner—a physicist with a background in quantum computing—as CTO of a 770,000-person company suggests Accenture is pivoting from "implementing" tech to "inventing" it. Warner replaces the traditional IT-focused leadership model with a deep-tech, R&D-heavy approach.

Why Faculty? "Safety" as a Product
Faculty (formerly ASI Data Science) carved out a niche by focusing on "AI Safety" long before it was a buzzword.

The "Black Box" Problem: Faculty specializes in making AI "explainable." Their technology allows clients to see why an algorithm made a decision—a critical requirement for highly regulated industries like healthcare, defense, and government.

Sovereign AI: The deal strengthens Accenture’s ability to offer "sovereign AI" solutions to European governments wary of relying entirely on US-based models. Faculty has deep ties to the UK public sector, having built the NHS Early Warning System and worked with the UK's AI Safety Institute.

The "Decision Intelligence" Shift
"Generative AI creates content, but Decision Intelligence creates value," Warner noted in a statement accompanying the announcement. The acquisition underscores a broader industry shift: moving beyond LLMs (Large Language Models) that write emails, toward "Agentic" systems that can autonomously manage supply chains, clinical trials, and energy grids.

Accenture CEO Julie Sweet emphasized that the deal allows the firm to offer "safe and ethical by design" AI systems. "With Faculty, we aren't just helping clients use AI; we are helping them trust it," Sweet said.

Consolidation Continues
This acquisition follows a busy 2025 for Accenture, which also snapped up Salesforce consultancy NeuraFlash and Palantir specialist Decho. However, the purchase of Faculty is widely seen as the "crown jewel" of this spree, giving Accenture a proprietary technology stack that competes directly with software vendors like Palantir and C3.ai.