Accenture (NYSE: ACN) has invested, through Accenture Ventures, in Cresta, a company that has developed an AI-powered platform designed for contact centers. As part of this investment, Accenture plans to integrate Cresta’s AI software capabilities into Accenture’s AI Refinery™️ a comprehensive platform that helps clients to build custom AI models that meet their unique business needs.

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Accenture invests in Cresta (Photo: Business Wire)

Generative AI is transforming customer experiences by creating seamless, personalized interactions that boost loyalty and operational excellence. Research from Accenture found that companies that apply generative AI to customer-related initiatives can expect to achieve 25% higher revenue after five years over companies focused only on productivity. Cresta’s AI-native solutions use advanced natural language processing and machine learning to enable real-time agent coaching, insights, and virtual agents to improve performance, reduce handle times, and increase customer satisfaction. The solutions also integrate with existing systems, both on-premise and in the cloud to create seamless AI-driven business transformation.

"Cresta's innovative solutions have the potential to revolutionize the contact center industry by equipping customer service teams with tools they need to provide more effective customer service," said Lan Guan, chief AI officer at Accenture. "The combination of Accenture’s AI Refinery™️ platform and Cresta’s AI solutions will allow us to offer our clients enhanced tools that drive productivity by automating routine tasks, offering real-time guidance to agents, and generating tailored customer interactions.”

“Generative AI is transforming the way we interact with customers, creating intelligent experiences that not only meet but anticipate needs,” said Baiju Shah, global chief strategy officer at Accenture Song. “Customer sales and service is evolving rapidly and Cresta is at the forefront. This investment underscores our commitment to leveraging AI to drive growth and innovation, raising the bar for customer service strategies that reduce operational costs and improve customer experience."

Cresta’s AI platform has been widely adopted across industries including retail, financial services, telecommunications, and healthcare, helping enterprises to accelerate customer resolution times, while maintaining high levels of service quality. Cresta was also recently named a Leader in The Forrester Wave™: Real-Time Revenue Execution Platforms, Q2 2024, receiving the highest possible scores across 15 criteria, including Innovation, Coaching: Seller Self-Coaching, AI Differentiators, AI: Large Language Model Utilization, Roadmap, and Adoption criteria¹. Accenture’s AI Refinery™️ supports organizations in converting these AI technologies and tools into scaled enterprise systems.

"Cresta and Accenture have a shared vision for the future of AI-powered customer interactions. This investment enables us to tap into Accenture's deep industry expertise and global reach, accelerating our growth and innovation while empowering more businesses to enhance efficiency, boost customer satisfaction, and create a sustainable competitive advantage through the power of AI,” said Ping Wu, CEO, Cresta.

Cresta is the latest company to join Accenture Ventures’ Project Spotlight, an engagement and investment program focused on working with companies that create or apply disruptive enterprise technologies. Project Spotlight brings promising startups into Accenture’s innovation network, giving them exposure to experts and clients and helping them tailor, refine and scale their solutions for maximum impact. This announcement highlights Accenture’s ongoing investment in data and AI capabilities to help clients grow their business and sustain relevance with customers, with previous investments in Martian, a technology company that has built a large language model (LLM) router, and Writer, a generative AI-powered platform that helps enterprises create and shape content.

About Accenture

Accenture is a leading global professional services company that helps the world’s leading organizations build their digital core, optimize their operations, accelerate revenue growth and enhance services—creating tangible value at speed and scale. We are a talent- and innovation-led company with 774,000 people serving clients in more than 120 countries. Technology is at the core of change today, and we are one of the world’s leaders in helping drive that change, with strong ecosystem relationships. We combine our strength in technology and leadership in cloud, data and AI with unmatched industry experience, functional expertise and global delivery capability. Our broad range of services, solutions and assets across Strategy & Consulting, Technology, Operations, Industry X and Song, together with our culture of shared success and commitment to creating 360° value, enable us to help our clients reinvent and build trusted, lasting relationships. We measure our success by the 360° value we create for our clients, each other, our shareholders, partners and communities. Visit us at accenture.com.

About Cresta

Cresta is on a mission to turn every customer conversation into a competitive advantage by unlocking the true potential of the contact center. Cresta’s platform combines the best of AI and human intelligence to help contact centers discover customer insights and behavioral best practices, automate conversations and inefficient processes, and empower every team member to work smarter and faster. Powering customer experiences for companies like Cox Communications, Hilton, and Carmax, Cresta helps turn every conversation into an opportunity. Follow our blog and connect with us on LinkedIn and X.

¹ The Forrester Wave™: Real-Time Revenue Execution Platforms, Q2 2024, by Seth Marrs with Cristina De Martini, Christina McAllister, Lok Sze Sung, Michael Belden

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