Accenture said it will acquire Udacity, an e-learning platform, and launch LearnVantage, a digital education and reskilling platform.
Terms of the deal weren't disclosed, but Accenture plans to make a big splash in enterprise reskilling.
Udacity’s 230 employees will join LearnVantage, which Accenture said is aimed at training clients. Udacity, founded in 2011, has 21 registered users in 195 countries and a large content library. Udacity competes with Coursera, which has ramped up enterprise training. Accenture said LearnVantage will also look to partner with the ed-tech ecosystem, including Coursera.
In a statement, Accenture said it will work with AWS, Google Cloud, Microsoft on generative AI certifications as well as e-learning players such as Coursera, Pluralsight, Workera and Skillsoft.
Accenture said it will invest $1 billion over three years in the LearnVantage effort. Accenture aims to offer personalized training in generative AI, data science, cloud and security as well as CXO lessons.
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Julie Sweet, Accenture CEO, said reskilling and training will be critical. Sweet said the goal is to help clients "become ‘talent creators’—with people at the center of their reinvention using technology, data and AI—and a critical part of that is investing in industry-specific training and technology skills development."
LearnVantage is part of a larger effort to reskill Accenture's 700,000 employees. According to Accenture, it will roll out data and AI training to 250,000 technology professionals. Fundamentals of AI has rolled out to more than 600,000 employees.