As AI reshapes the consulting sector, firms like Accenture are raising the bar for junior hires. One key skill has emerged as the defining issue: their ability to show critical judgment.  

Krish Banerjee, Accenture Canada’s head of data and AI, said the expectations for young recruits are clear: “Even when you are an entry-level, starting from school, how do you start making decisions and judgments based on things that are presented in front of you?” he told The Logic in an interview. 

Five years ago, senior consultants might send their junior counterparts off with a list of questions, and make decisions based on the answers. Now, Banerjee said, entry-level hires effectively start at a more advanced level and are tasked with making more of those decisions themselves, as they work “side by side” with AI models.

Banerjee noted that five different AI models might spit out different answers to the same question, and workers must sniff out when they’re being fed incomplete information. That requires “executive decision-making capability” that was once reserved for the senior level, he said. Familiarity with ChatGPT or Claude will become the “table stakes,” much like the long-standing expectation new hires can handle Microsoft Office tools.  

Accenture is undergoing a major restructuring expected to last through the end of the month, which includes “exiting” workers who are not able to learn the new skills the organization needs, including AI. Its global workforce shrank by 11,000 during the fourth quarter, though the firm said in its earnings report it plans to expand its head count in the next fiscal year under a new talent strategy that will beef up AI-related parts of its business. 

“There is so much demand and the technology is moving faster,” CEO Julie Sweet said in a September quarterly earnings call, concluding that workers must also learn new skills faster. 

Banerjee said his focus on re-training workers to improve their decision-making skills extends to his clients who are implementing AI in their own companies. In many Canadian companies, workers are trained to provide answers, instead of how to ask the right questions, he said. 

“The most important thing is about talent, and this is where a lot of these initiatives are actually stumbling,” he said. 

Banerjee’s comments come as the industry has been under scrutiny. Deloitte came under fire last week after a report it prepared for Newfoundland and Labrador was found to contain false, AI-generated citations, prompting the province to review its AI standards. 

Banerjee said guardrails should be built into AI systems far before they reach an end user. He advises his clients to do this as well, helping them install custom governance policies and fail-safes early in the software development process.

“How do you ensure that whoever is training the model, whoever is designing the algorithm, who is doing the actual ingestion of the data, they are doing this with the right ethical principles, the right kind of data sets?” he said. 

“Once it is in the hands of the users, there’s really not a whole lot that you can do,” he added, “but there are ways in which you can solve this at a technical level.” 

While the U.S. Department of Government Efficiency’s cost-cutting push earlier this year put pressure on consulting firms, Banerjee said the Canadian government is still actively scouting “best of breed” ideas on sovereign AI and improving economic productivity. He said he’s met with AI Minister Evan Solomon and is working on “a number of initiatives with the Canadian government.” 

Banerjee said Accenture has seen a noticeable surge of interest from Canadian clients over the past two quarters. From 2022 to 2024, many companies saw AI as a box to tick, adopting the mindset, “I have an AI hammer. Let me look for the nails that are out there that I can solve with AI,” he said.

Now, companies are past the point of “playing” with the technology and are focused on solving real problems in their businesses. 

“There are some nails that probably will get solved with AI. And it’s a huge part of it, but there could be other ways of doing it,” he said. ”It’s about reinvention.”