International consultancy Accenture announced last week that it had invested in AI startup Alembic, kickstarting a partnership that will leverage the technology to better measure the effectiveness of marketing efforts for its clients.
Alembic markets itself as a causal marketing intelligence platform, able to map data from multichannel marketing activity to sales outcomes. The tech assigns scores to each channel based on impact, which is intended to inform future spend and create demonstrable links between campaigns and revenue. It also touts the ability to measure traditional channels alongside those more challenging to track — spanning broadcast media, website traffic, D2C communications, organic social posts, brand campaigns, sponsorships and events — and takes into account world events, such as market and public policy changes, that may require marketers to change course.
Citing Gartner research that found two-thirds of marketing leaders faced significant challenges connecting their campaigns to business objectives, the partnership aims to unify siloed data within organisations to prove return on investment. In a statement, Accenture chair and CEO Julie Sweet said the causal AI technology is “moving the enterprise beyond correlation to deliver the verifiable, cause-and-effect insights leaders need to act with decisive speed.”
Alembic completed its Series B round of funding earlier this month with a valuation of $645 million. The round, in which Alembic raised $145 million, was led by Accenture, along with Prysm Capital and participation from a range of other investment firms including Silver Lake Waterman, WndrCo, Liquid 2 Ventures, NextEquity Partners and Friends & Family Capital.
Accenture has been investing in new AI technologies over the past few years, such as Aaru, a customer behavior prediction engine, and Writer, a generative AI content creation engine. It also launched AI Refinery, a suite of 12 agentic AI solutions built on Nvidia AI Enterprise software, in January, and announced plans in August to acquire NeuraFlash, an independent software partner for Salesforce and Amazon Web Services.
Accenture’s and Alembic’s AI capabilities both being powered by Nvidia, makes it easier to integrate and partner.
“Most companies are not short on data. They are short on answers, and that is where our Nvidia SuperPOD backbone makes the difference,” said Tomás Puig, founder and CEO of Alembic, in a statement. “Together we are turning that data into concrete insights leaders can act on.”
Accenture Song, the consultancy’s creative marketing arm, is piloting the use of Alembic to measure its own marketing efforts. In August, Accenture Song acquired influencer agency Superdigital, the latest in a string of agency acquisitions since 2024.
“Alembic’s capabilities complement existing approaches, such as market mix modelling, but now with seemingly limitless variables that can be analysed,” said Arun Kumar, global customer AI and data lead at Accenture Song, in a statement. “Where measurement has often been seen as an afterthought, Alembic lets us see both the big picture and the details.”
