April 27 (Reuters) - Microsoft is rolling out its Copilot 365 AI assistant to all of Accenture's roughly 743,000 employees, in the biggest enterprise deal for the chatbot as the software giant seeks to convert more of its vast customer base into paying users.
Financial details of the agreement were not disclosed by the companies in a joint statement on Monday. It is a major boost for Microsoft as just a little more than 3% of its over 450 million 365 enterprise users pay for the $30-a-month offering.
Slow Copilot adoption and uneven cloud growth have deepened investor worries over returns from Microsoft's hefty AI outlay. Its shares are down 12% this year, after their biggest quarterly drop since the 2008 financial crisis in January to March.
The move builds on Accenture's plan in 2024 to offer Copilot to as many as 300,000 employees. The company has emerged as one of the most aggressive corporate adopters of AI, even tying top-level promotions to the technology's usage, per media reports.
Charles Lamanna, who leads Microsoft's M365 apps and Copilot platform, told Reuters that efforts to offer multiple AI models, including Anthropic and tools such as "Critique" - which uses one model to check another's output - are aiding demand.
Microsoft has recently pushed Anthropic's technology aggressively to customers, aiming to reduce its OpenAI reliance while tapping demand for products from the Claude creator.
A reworked partnership unveiled earlier on Monday ends Microsoft's exclusive access to OpenAI's technology, clearing the way for the ChatGPT creator to sell its products across rival cloud platforms.
ACCENTURE TOUTS PRODUCTIVITY GAINS FROM AI
Accenture said the initial Copilot deployment has paid off.
About 97% of staff said Copilot helped them complete routine tasks up to 15 times faster, while 53% reported major gains in productivity, according to a self-reported company survey of 200,000 users.
"Our teams are already doing higher-value work because of it," Accenture CEO Julie Sweet said.
The remarks follow recent reports that have raised doubts about productivity gains from AI.
A survey of nearly 6,000 senior executives at U.S., UK, German and Australian firms, published by the National Bureau of Economic Research in February, found nearly 90% said AI had no impact on employment or productivity over the past three years.
(Reporting by Aditya Soni in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju Samuel)
