In a landscape where corporations are scrambling to adopt generative AI, one of Accenture’s top executives responsible for artificial intelligence (AI) offered a stark reality check to business leaders: it’s not a side project.
During the recent Fortune Brainstorm AI conference, Arnab Chakraborty, Chief Responsible AI Officer at Accenture, argued that the era of treating technology roadmaps as distinct from corporate goals is over. “The data and AI strategy is not a separate strategy, it is the business strategy,” he said, emphasizing that for modern organizations, these elements must be the foundation of the entire operation.
This insight stems from a massive, ongoing collaboration between Accenture and Australian telecommunications giant Telstra. In January 2025, the two companies moved beyond a traditional client-consultant relationship to form a dedicated joint venture, a move designed to bypass the sluggishness of typical corporate structures. Dayle Stevens, a Telstra data and AI executive, told moderator Jeremy Kahn that the company had a five-year strategic roadmap but realized the market was moving too fast for standard timelines. “We thought we could do what we wanted to do within five years and we wanted to do it within two.”
