riskdiff

Accenture plc: 10-K Risk Factor Changes

2024 vs 2023 · SEC EDGAR · 2026-05-10

Other years: 2025 vs 2024 · 2023 vs 2022

⚠ AI-Generated

The summary below was generated by an AI language model and may contain errors or omissions. All other content on this page is deterministically extracted from the original SEC EDGAR filing.

Accenture added two new risk factors in 2024 addressing artificial intelligence development and debt obligations, reflecting emerging concerns about AI governance and financial leverage. The company substantively revised its economic and geopolitical risk disclosure, likely expanding coverage of how volatile conditions impact client spending. Overall, the risk factor structure remained stable with 18 of 21 risks continuing unchanged from 2023.

✓ Deterministic extraction — no AI-generated data

Classification is based on semantic text similarity scoring and may include approximations. “No match” means no high-confidence textual match was found — not necessarily that a section was removed.

New Risks

Removed

Modified

Unchanged

🟢 New in Current Filing

Risks and uncertainties related to the development and use of AI could harm our business, damage our reputation or give rise to legal or regulatory action.

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We are increasingly applying AI-based technologies, including generative AI, to our services and solutions, to how we deliver work to our clients, and to our own internal operations. In addition, we are creating new offerings to implement AI solutions for clients. We have made significant investments in AI and are continuing to incur significant development and operational costs to develop and deploy our AI services and solutions for ourselves and for our clients. If we fail to continue to develop leading AI services and solutions, including generative AI, we may lose our leadership position in this area and fail to realize the anticipated benefits of our investments in AI. AI technologies are complex and rapidly evolving, and we face significant competition, including from our own clients, who may develop their own internal AI-related capabilities, which can lead to reduced demand for our services or solutions. As these technologies evolve, some services and tasks currently performed by our people will be replaced by automation, including AI-enabled solutions, which will lead to reduced demand for our services and/or adversely affect the utilization rate of our professionals, if demand for those services is not replaced by demand for new services. Leveraging AI capabilities for our internal functions and operations presents additional risks, costs, and challenges, including those discussed in these risk factors. The development, adoption, and use of AI technologies is still in the early stages and involve significant risks and uncertainties, which may expose us to legal, reputational and financial harm. AI algorithms and training methodologies may be flawed and datasets may be overbroad, insufficient, or contain biased information. Moreover, the use of AI may give rise to risks related to harmful content, accuracy, bias, intellectual property infringement or misappropriation, defamation, data privacy, cybersecurity and health and safety, among others, and also bring the possibility of new or enhanced governmental Table of ContentsACCENTURE 2024 FORM 10-KItem 1A. Risk Factors 20 Table of ContentsACCENTURE 2024 FORM 10-KItem 1A. Risk Factors 20 Table of Contents ACCENTURE 2024 FORM 10-K 20 or regulatory scrutiny, litigation or other legal liability, or ethical concerns that could adversely affect our business, reputation, or financial results. Evolving rules, regulations, and industry standards governing AI may require us to incur significant costs to modify, maintain, or align our business practices, services and solutions to comply with US and non-US rules and regulations, the nature of which cannot be determined at this time and may be inconsistent from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Several jurisdictions where we operate are considering or have proposed or enacted legislation and policies regulating AI and non-personal data, such as the European Union’s AI Act and the U.S.’s Executive Order on AI. These regulations may impose significant requirements on how we design, build and deploy AI and handle non-personal data for ourselves and our clients or limit our ability to incorporate certain AI capabilities into our offerings. While we aim to develop and use AI responsibly and attempt to identify and mitigate ethical and legal issues presented by its use, we may be unsuccessful in identifying or resolving issues before they arise. Any failure to address concerns relating to the responsible use of AI technology in our services and solutions may cause harm to our reputation or financial liability and, as such, may increase our costs to address or mitigate such risks and issues.

🟢 New in Current Filing

Our debt obligations could adversely affect our business and financial condition.

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Our current debt, and any additional indebtedness we incur, may adversely affect our financial condition and future financial results by, among other things, requiring the dedication of a portion of our expected cash from operations to service our Table of ContentsACCENTURE 2024 FORM 10-KItem 1A. Risk Factors 26 Table of ContentsACCENTURE 2024 FORM 10-KItem 1A. Risk Factors 26 Table of Contents ACCENTURE 2024 FORM 10-K 26 indebtedness, thereby reducing the amount of cash flow available for other purposes. We may also be required to raise additional financing, which will depend on, among other factors, our financial position and performance, as well as prevailing market conditions and other factors beyond our control. We may not be able to obtain additional financing or refinancing on terms acceptable to us, or at all, which could adversely impact our ability to service our outstanding indebtedness or to repay our outstanding indebtedness as it becomes due and could adversely impact our business and financial condition. Additionally, further indebtedness may increase the risk of a future downgrade in our credit ratings, which could increase future debt costs and limit the future availability of debt financing.

🟡 Modified

Our results of operations have been, and may in the future be, adversely affected by volatile, negative or uncertain economic and geopolitical conditions and the effects of these conditions on our clients’ businesses and levels of business activity.

high match confidence

Sentence-level differences:

Reworded sentence: "Volatile, negative and uncertain economic and geopolitical conditions have in the past undermined and could in the future undermine business confidence in our significant markets and other markets, which are increasingly interdependent, causing our clients to reduce or defer their spending on new initiatives and technologies, and resulting in clients reducing, delaying or eliminating spending under existing contracts with us, which negatively affects our business."
Reworded sentence: "Ongoing economic and geopolitical volatility and uncertainty and changing demand patterns affect our business in a number of other ways, including making it more difficult to accurately forecast client demand and effectively build our revenue and resource plans, particularly in consulting."
Added sentence: "For example, some of these conditions slowed the pace and level of client spending, particularly for smaller contracts with a shorter duration and for our consulting services during fiscal 2024."
Added sentence: "Clients continue to prioritize large-scale transformations, which convert to revenue over a longer period."

Current (2024):

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Global macroeconomic and geopolitical conditions affect us, our clients’ businesses and the markets they serve. Volatile, negative and uncertain economic and geopolitical conditions have in the past undermined and could in the future undermine business confidence in our significant markets and other markets, which are increasingly interdependent, causing our clients to reduce or defer their spending on new initiatives and technologies, and resulting in clients reducing, delaying or eliminating spending under existing contracts with us, which negatively affects our business. Growth in some of the markets we serve has slowed and could continue to slow, or could slow in other markets or stagnate or contract, in each case, for an extended period of time. Because we operate globally and have significant businesses in many markets, an economic slowdown in any of those markets could adversely affect our results of operations. Ongoing economic and geopolitical volatility and uncertainty and changing demand patterns affect our business in a number of other ways, including making it more difficult to accurately forecast client demand and effectively build our revenue and resource plans, particularly in consulting. Economic and geopolitical volatility and uncertainty is particularly challenging because it may take some time for the effects and changes in demand patterns resulting from these and other factors to manifest themselves in our business and results of operations. Changing demand patterns from economic and political volatility and uncertainty, including as a result of increasing geopolitical tensions, inflation, economic downturns, changes in global trade policies, global health emergencies and their impact on us, our clients and the industries we serve, have in the past had a negative impact and could in the future have a significant negative impact on our results of operations. For example, some of these conditions slowed the pace and level of client spending, particularly for smaller contracts with a shorter duration and for our consulting services during fiscal 2024. Clients continue to prioritize large-scale transformations, which convert to revenue over a longer period.

View prior text (2023)

Global macroeconomic and geopolitical conditions affect us, our clients’ businesses and the markets they serve. Volatile, negative and uncertain economic and political conditions have in the past undermined and could in the future undermine business confidence in our significant markets and other markets, which are increasingly interdependent, causing our clients to reduce or defer their spending on new initiatives and technologies, and resulting in clients reducing, delaying or eliminating spending under existing contracts with us, which negatively affects our business. Growth in some of the markets we serve has slowed and could continue to slow, or could slow in other markets or stagnate or contract, in each case, for an extended period of time. Because we operate globally and have significant businesses in many markets, an economic slowdown in any of those markets could adversely affect our results of operations. Ongoing economic and political volatility and uncertainty and changing demand patterns affect our business in a number of other ways, including making it more difficult to accurately forecast client demand and effectively build our revenue and resource plans, particularly in consulting. Economic and political volatility and uncertainty is particularly challenging because it may take some time for the effects and changes in demand patterns resulting from these and other factors to manifest themselves in our business and results of operations. Changing demand patterns from economic and political volatility and uncertainty, including as a result of increasing geopolitical tensions, inflation, economic downturns, changes in global trade policies, global health emergencies and their impact on us, our clients and the industries we serve, have in the past had a negative impact and could in the future have a significant negative impact on our results of operations.