Accenture (NYSE:ACN) has agreed to acquire Faculty, a prominent U.K.-based AI services and products firm, in a move that signals a major escalation in the global consulting giant's push toward "applied AI."
The acquisition, announced Tuesday, January 6, 2026, will see Faculty’s CEO, Marc Warner, take over as Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of Accenture, joining the firm's Global Management Committee.
The deal integrates Faculty's team of over 400 AI professionals, including data scientists and engineers, into Accenture’s Data & AI practice.
While financial terms were not disclosed, the acquisition is centered on Faculty Frontier™, an enterprise "decision intelligence" platform.
The software uses advanced simulations and optimization to help organizations move beyond simple chatbots toward "mission-critical" AI that can predict and manage complex business processes—such as clinical trial planning or national healthcare resource allocation.
Faculty gained international recognition for building the NHS Early Warning System during the COVID-19 pandemic, a tool used to predict patient demand and allocate critical care resources across the U.K.
This focus on "safe and secure" AI is a cornerstone of the acquisition.
Faculty currently collaborates with leading labs like OpenAI and Anthropic to perform safety assessments on general-purpose models.
Under the new structure, Accenture plans to globalize Faculty’s Fellowship Program, a renowned training initiative that transitions STEM PhDs and master’s graduates into industry data science roles.