Unilever hands Accenture global brief to scale GenAI

Consumer goods giant Unilever is strengthening its relationship with Accenture – which first began in the 1990s – to support the multinational’s AI implementation to enhance productivity, drive efficiencies, and accelerate innovations on a global basis.

One of the key assignments the two companies will explore will be to devise new applications to scale generative AI; a crucial challenge facing the widescale adoption of the technology.

As Jonathan Halvorson, global senior vice-president of consumer experience and digital commerce at arch rival Mondelēz, recently said: “The question is, how do you build AI into a scaled organisational competency? That is the obsession of every single day, every single week for the next 18 months. Because it’s a race you have to win.”

To this end, Unilever will tap into assets from Accenture’s AI Navigator or its proprietary “switchboard”, which allows a user to select a combination of models to address the unique business context.

The work will kick-off from Unilever’s global AI Lab “Horizon3 Labs,” recently opened in Toronto; the €60bn turnover company’s 400-plus brands are used by 3.4 billion people every day.

This initiative will leverage the industry solutions within Accenture’s previously announced $3bn investment in data and AI.

It will also see Unilever access Accenture’s top data and AI experts, and help capitalise on Accenture’s partnerships, ventures, and strategic investments within its Center for Advanced AI. This includes more than 1,450 pending and issued patents in Accenture’s AI solutions and learnings from more than 300 generative AI projects.

Unilever chief enterprise and technology officer Steve McCrystal said: “We are excited about building on our long-standing partnership with Accenture to step up our innovation agenda and drive value for our consumers, retailers, and distributors.

“Horizon3 Labs is a unique platform for collaboration and co-creation, and we look forward to working with Accenture and other partners to take our investment in AI to a new level.”

Accenture chair and CEO Julie Sweet added: “This collaboration builds on our relationship of more than three decades with Unilever, which continues to raise the bar as a digital powerhouse and industry leader.

“The combination of Horizon3 Labs’ disruptive innovation with Accenture’s deep expertise and strong ecosystem partnerships will help Unilever scale AI and generative AI more rapidly and responsibly across its business and discover new pathways to value.”