Accenture Invests in Martian to Bring Dynamic Routing of Large Language Queries and More Effective AI Systems to Clients

September 17, 2024 at 07:59 AM EDT

Accenture (NYSE: ACN) has invested, through Accenture Ventures, in Martian, a technology company that has built a patent-pending Large Language Model (LLM) router. For any prompt, Martian’s router will find and use the LLM that will give users the best result at the lowest cost. As part of this investment, Accenture plans to integrate Martian’s advanced model router offering into its proprietary “switchboard” services that can customize large-language models (LLMs) for specific data sources and use cases for greater impact of AI systems.

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Accenture has invested, through Accenture Ventures, in Martian, a technology company that has built a patent-pending Large Language Model (LLM) router. (Graphic: Business Wire)

The rapid expansion of AI systems and large language models has created a complex landscape where each model presents unique tradeoffs in performance, cost, and speed. Martian’s model router addresses these challenges by searching across a vast number of LLMs in order to dynamically route prompts to the model that will yield the highest quality results based on specific performance and technical requirements for each enterprise. The router also improves reliability; prompts are automatically rerouted to other providers when a model or provider becomes unavailable, significantly reducing downtime.

“Many of our clients are looking to reap the benefits of generative AI in a responsible way that takes into account customized requirements, performance and cost,” said Lan Guan, chief AI officer at Accenture. “The capabilities of Accenture’s switchboard services and Martian’s dynamic LLM routing simplify the user experience and will allow enterprises to experiment with generative AI and LLMs in order to find the perfect fit for their business needs.”

Launched in November 2023, Accenture’s switchboard service allows clients to test, evaluate, deploy, and control the most potent combination of LLMs for their needs. Integrating Martian’s dynamic router capabilities, clients will be able to open up access to AI systems with customized models tailored to unique prompts and requirements, ensuring optimal performance and cost-efficiency. New LLMs will be automatically added in and analyzed as they become available, helping ensure that outputs will be accurate and current. Switchboard services can be applied to emerging technologies such as quantum as well.

“We’re always exploring ways to accelerate our leadership in applying generative AI technology to create and protect growth and relevance for clients, with creativity at the core,” said Dan Garrison, chief technology officer for Accenture Song. “We believe Martian’s novel approach and capabilities can help our clients and people build dynamic AI systems fit for today and tomorrow.”

“The vast majority of enterprises building Gen AI applications are in early stages and finding that output accuracy is often too low to justify going into production. By integrating our technology with Accenture’s switchboard services, we can substantially boost accuracy so enterprises see quality results that exceed production threshold. Accenture’s technology and expertise will be critical as Martian continues to grow and simplify large language model management for enterprises,” said Shriyash Upadhyay, co-founder of Martian.

Martian 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 real business problems we’re solving for our clients and helping them tailor, refine and scale their solutions for maximum impact.

Terms of the investment were not disclosed.

About Accenture

Accenture is a leading global professional services company that helps the world’s leading businesses, governments and other organizations build their digital core, optimize their operations, accelerate revenue growth and enhance citizen services—creating tangible value at speed and scale. We are a talent- and innovation-led company with approximately 750,000 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. We are uniquely able to deliver tangible outcomes because of our broad range of services, solutions and assets across Strategy & Consulting, Technology, Operations, Industry X and Song. These capabilities, 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 www.accenture.com.

About Martian

Martian built the first model router, backed by $9M from NEA, General Catalyst, CVP, and Prosus Ventures. You can think of us like Google for LLMs: every time you send us a request, we automatically find and use the LLM which will give you the best result at the lowest cost. Engineers at 300+ companies, from Amazon to Zapier, have used Martian to achieve higher performance and lower costs, with greater security and reliability. The team consists of previous AI researchers at Stanford, Harvard, University of Pennsylvania, the Google Bard Team, and Microsoft Research who have previously built and sold multiple NLP companies and published in the leading AI research journals.