Accenture has invested in Aera Technology through Accenture Ventures. The companies will combine Aera’s agentic decision intelligence with Accenture’s AI-enabled supply chain capabilities.
The partnership targets complex global supply chains in consumer goods, high-tech, life sciences, mining, and oil and gas. The companies plan to bring AI-led, real-time decision-making tools to large enterprise operations.
Most supply chains still depend on fragmented and manual processes. Accenture research found many companies remain in the early stages of adopting autonomous capabilities.
About 25% of respondents have started moving toward autonomy. The median maturity across supply chain activities is only 16% on an index from 0% fully manual to 100% fully autonomous.
Accenture said that low maturity creates a major barrier to competitiveness and resilience. The problem becomes more visible when companies face frequent disruptive events.
Aera’s decision intelligence combines agentic AI, a proprietary decision data model, and real-time orchestration engines. The system supports decisions across supply chain, procurement, finance, and operations.
Aera agents monitor changes, improve supply and demand decisions, and execute actions across the enterprise. They also learn from outcomes to improve performance over time.
Chris McDivitt, global lead for autonomous supply chains at Accenture, said the current business environment keeps stress-testing supply chains. He said manual and siloed processes cannot keep up with the speed of decisions needed to balance costs and service.
“Today’s business environment is constantly stress-testing supply chains,” said Chris McDivitt, global lead for autonomous supply chains at Accenture. “The speed at which decisions are required to balance costs and services is outstripping what manual, siloed processes can sustain.
Our partnership with Aera Technology will enable highly resilient, AI-enabled supply chains that can sense change before disruption hits, equip our clients’ supply chain teams with recommendations how to act, and execute many of those decisions automatically under human oversight.
Chris McDivitt, global lead for autonomous supply chains at Accenture
McDivitt said the Aera partnership will help clients build AI-enabled supply chains that detect change before disruption hits. He said the tools will give supply chain teams recommendations and execute many decisions automatically under human oversight.
The Hershey Company is already using AI-enabled decision-making in its supply chains with support from Aera and Accenture. Douglas Guilherme, global supply chain senior vice president at Hershey, said volatility requires AI tools that identify and avoid problems before they happen.
Aera co-founder and CEO Fred Laluyaux said decision intelligence supports a new operating model. He said intelligent systems can manage complexity at speed and scale while people focus on strategy and performance.
“The opportunity in front of us is extraordinary. Decision intelligence is enabling a new operating model where intelligent systems manage complexity at speed and scale, and people focus on strategy and performance,” said Fred Laluyaux.
At Aera, we see this shift firsthand, and together with Accenture, we’re accelerating how organizations scale this capability so they can operate with greater precision, speed, and impact.
Fred Laluyaux, Co-Founder and CEO, Aera Technology
Accenture is a global solutions and services company listed on the NYSE under ACN. The company has about 786,000 employees and works with enterprise clients on digital systems, AI, platforms, and technology services.
