In late 2018, a PwC senior manager named Patricia Miller, age 32, learned about a new opportunity in her Florida office called the Digital Accelerators program. Her local firm was recruiting a group of about 1,000 employees, drawn from a base of more than 45,000 nationally, to become pioneers in advanced technology. These early adopters would spend two months in intensive training and return ready to help their fellow employees succeed in a world of artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, and digitally-enabled platforms.
Miller had worked primarily in project management and was just finishing an MBA. She didn’t have a technical background. But the notice didn’t specify one, so she applied and was accepted. “Here was a chance,” she recalls, “to rethink my potential. I saw where the world was going, and I was hungry to be part of it.”
Miller rapidly built up the skills necessary to understand and use digital tools, including data visualization and bots. One of the bots she developed consolidated and identified the specifications for automated data-gathering tools. “No more bulky spreadsheets [full of comparative evaluations],” says Miller. “We could just send out a link to the information the bot gathered and interpreted.”
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