Accenture is acquiring UK-based Faculty, an AI safety adviser to OpenAI and others, as it accelerates its push into secure, enterprise-grade artificial intelligence.
Accenture, the global IT consulting firm, is acquiring Faculty, a UK-based artificial intelligence company known for advising frontier model developers, including OpenAI, on AI safety.
Founded in 2014, Faculty has built a reputation at the intersection of advanced AI development, public policy and enterprise deployment. The firm was co-founded by Marc Warner, its chief executive and a former UK government adviser on artificial intelligence. Faculty also worked with Vote Leave during the Brexit referendum.
The acquisition comes as Accenture intensifies its global push into artificial intelligence, seeking to meet surging demand from companies looking to deploy AI systems that are both powerful and secure. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Accenture said the transaction would strengthen its ability to deliver “safe and secure AI solutions” to clients across industries.
“With Faculty, we will further accelerate our strategy to bring trusted, advanced AI to the heart of our clients’ businesses,” said Julie Sweet, chair and chief executive of Accenture.
Manish Sharma, Accenture’s chief strategy and services officer, said the combined teams would form “a powerhouse of talent” capable of helping clients deploy AI in practical, real-world settings. “This will help our clients stay competitive, pursue sovereign solutions, and reinvent their operations with transparency and resilience at a critical time,” he said.
Warner said the deal aligned closely with Faculty’s long-term mission. “Our vision has always been a world in which safe AI delivers widespread benefits to humanity,” he said. “By teaming up with Accenture, we have everything in place to support AI transformation from start to finish.”
Under the agreement, Faculty’s more than 400 employees will join Accenture. Warner will continue as Faculty’s chief executive while also taking on the role of chief technology officer at Accenture.
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Faculty advises companies on AI strategy, decision intelligence and AI safety. Its clients include Anthropic and OpenAI, where it helps evaluate the safety of models before release. The company has also worked with the UK government on projects to develop AI tools for managing lesson planning and grading in schools.
Accenture and Faculty have collaborated since 2023. The deal will bring Faculty’s enterprise decision intelligence platform into Accenture’s broader AI product portfolio.
The two firms are already working together in the life sciences sector, including with Novartis, using Accenture’s Frontier platform to improve the economics of clinical trial planning.
Faculty raised £30 million in growth funding in 2021 from the Apax Digital Fund. In total, the company has raised about £40 million and is also backed by LocalGlobe.
