Accenture CEO Julie Sweet is telling onlookers to hold their judgment.

Shares at the global professional services firm fell nearly 20% on Thursday and have dropped about 50% since this time last year.

In its third-quarter earnings call on Thursday, it reported a 2% drop in new bookings compared to the third quarter of 2026. It also reported revenues of $18.7 billion, up $1.0 billion from the same quarter in 2025, though that was below expectations.

Sweet's message to the investors betting on the company was simple: Be patient. As companies seek Accenture's help to integrate AI, she said, the numbers will improve.

"The investors, I think, are missing the AI tailwind and how we're positioning ourselves for the long-term," Sweet said on CNBC on Thursday after the earnings call. She pointed to an increase in consulting sales and to the $9 billion in managed services it brought in. "AI scaling will take some time," she said.

On Thursday's earnings call, Sweet also highlighted the number of clients moving beyond AI pilots into production. In this area, she said the firm continues to see promise as demand for large-scale AI transformation grows.

"We're doing more consulting now because clients are doing more reinvention," she said, using the company's in-house term for AI transformation. "It really depends on how fast enterprises are ready to scale. There's a lot of work to do to scale. We are optimistic because we see what our clients are asking us to do."

Last year, Accenture made a massive pivot in the AI race as it consolidated its strategy, consulting, song, technology, and operations services into a single unit known as "reinvention services."

"What we're going to do now is make it even easier to bring those solutions, embed data and AI, so we can really scale across our client base and into new markets using our reinvention services," Sweet told CNBC last year.

Investors, however, appear to be running out of patience.