Sept 26 (Reuters) - IT services firm Accenture ( ACN )

on Thursday unveiled a $4.0 billion share buyback and reported

better-than-expected fourth-quarter revenue thanks to demand

from companies looking to adopt generative artificial

intelligence technology.

Shares of the company were up nearly 7% in premarket

trading.

The Dublin-based company reported fourth-quarter revenue of

$16.41 billion, compared with analysts expectations of $16.38

billion, according to LSEG data.

Its generative AI business, which helped the company offset

the slowdown in demand for IT services, continued to grow for a

fourth successive quarter.

Accenture's ( ACN ) new bookings, a key metric indicating the value

of customer contracts with spending commitments, rose to $20.1

billion for the fourth quarter, up from $17.25 billion in the

third quarter.

Generative AI bookings contributed $1 billion to the

company's new bookings, compared to $900 million in the previous

quarter.