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From Control Rooms to Autonomous Operations: What the AI-Era Utility Will Actually Look Like
The electric utility operating model is under pressure. Distribution systems are becoming more complex, customer expectations are rising, data center and electrification-driven load growth are accelerating, and utilities must improve reliability and resilience while maintaining affordability. Incremental improvement will not be enough. Utilities need to rethink how work gets done across grid operations, field operations, asset management, storm response, customer operations, and the back office.
This utility-led panel brings together senior leaders from Southern California Edison, TXNM , and Georgia Power to discuss how leading utilities are modernizing operations and scaling new capabilities. The session will focus on how utilities can move from isolated digital and AI pilots to an integrated operating model where people, data, systems, and automated workflows work together.
Panelists will explore where innovation is creating real operational value today, including predictive asset maintenance, automated inspection triage, advanced outage prediction, self-healing grid capabilities, AI-assisted control room workflows, storm response optimization, customer communications, and automated back-office support. They will also discuss what changes when AI moves from pilot to production, including the hard parts of scaling: data quality, model governance, cybersecurity, integration with ADMS, OMS, GIS, AMI, DERMS, and EAM platforms, frontline adoption, decision rights, human-in-the-loop design, and operational risk management.
The conversation will also address how the workforce must evolve as routine analysis, reporting, work packaging, and exception handling become more automated. Rather than framing automation as replacement, the panel will focus on how utilities can free engineers, operators, field leaders, customer teams, and back-office functions to focus on higher-value judgment, resilience planning, customer trust, vendor relationships, and regulatory explanation.
Attendees will leave with a grounded view of the future utility operating model — not a theoretical AI discussion — and a practical understanding of where innovation is working, what capabilities are required to scale it, what utilities should stop doing, and how leading utilities are preparing their operations for the next decade.
