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Accenture had its worst stock day ever on fears AI is eating consulting. Hours earlier, it spent $4.18bn trying to escape that.

Accenture had the worst day in its history on the stock market on Thursday, and the reason cuts to the heart of the AI era: investors increasingly fear that AI will hollow out the consulting business itself.

Shares fell as much as 20 per cent, the company’s worst one-day drop on record, after it forecast weaker revenue for the current quarter. The stock is now down more than 50 per cent this year.

The immediate triggers were a soft outlook and the war in the Middle East, which Accenture said cut about $400mn from sales in the quarter, with more expected. But the deeper worry is structural.

“AI is disrupting demand across consulting and managed service,” Bloomberg Intelligence wrote. Apollo’s Scott Kleinman recently argued that professional services, law firms, accountancies, and consultancies, are the next sector after software to be disrupted by AI.

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