Jim Cramer isn’t known for subtlety, and his June 12 take on Accenture was no exception. The CNBC host agreed with the thesis that the consulting giant is “being outcompeted by OpenAI and Anthropic,” pointing to growing concerns that advanced AI tools are siphoning business away from traditional consulting firms.
The timing matters. Accenture’s earnings report looms, and the stock is under pressure from a question that won’t go away: if AI can do what a $500-per-hour consultant does, why hire the consultant?
The consulting industry’s AI problem
OpenAI and Anthropic aren’t just building chatbots anymore. Both companies announced large-scale enterprise AI services initiatives in 2026, raising billions in capital to place AI engineers directly with clients. In English: the AI labs are becoming consultants themselves.
Accenture has tried to get ahead of this. In December 2025, the company expanded its partnership with Anthropic, creating a dedicated Anthropic Business Group and planning to train approximately 30,000 professionals on Claude models. Similar partnerships with OpenAI positioned Accenture as an implementation partner, helping enterprises deploy AI tools they couldn’t set up on their own.
