Following the release of Tech Trends 2024: An Australian Perspective, we look at how generative AI is shaping asset-intensive sectors.
It may be surprising to learn that process-driven and asset-intensive organisations are uniquely positioned to benefit from generative AI. This is especially true in Australia, a country with a world-leading energy and resources (E&R) industry.
We are home to the world’s largest iron ore mining industry, some of the largest, most modern and automated integrated liquified natural gas (LNG) operations, a wide range of important critical minerals mining operations and an ever-increasing breadth of renewable energy assets. The enormous quantities of proprietary data these operations generate and manage are exactly what is needed to customise, train and refine generative AI models.
Assets are distributed across a vast geographical footprint, often located in harsh environments with limited supporting infrastructure. The unique combination of global industrial scale and sophistication, coupled with the disadvantages of remoteness and environmental conditions spawns an abundance of use cases that are ideally suited to generative AI technology. Smart use of generative AI can help these organisations not only level up their operations, but transform and change the game.
Our latest edition of State of Generative AI in the Enterprise revealed many directors and C-suite executives are relying on off-the-shelf solutions to level up their organisations. Most of these are productivity-boosting applications, which generally achieve quick productivity and efficiency wins, or enterprise software platform integrations, which require more thoughtful and costly implementation but tend to drive greater value.
Far fewer organisations are pursuing more specialised, differentiated and industry-specific solutions, suggesting most are still in their infancy with generative AI. For industries like mining, oil and gas, and power and utilities, this is where the opportunities lie to solve unique business challenges, leveraging their proprietary data, and unlocking the greatest possible value from generative AI. While they can be complex to implement, solutions that customise generative AI models in a way that is tailored to an organisation’s specific context and processes can tackle their biggest challenges in new ways – perhaps transforming the way they do maintenance or changing the way employees work on site.
As organisations embark on this journey, it is important to remember that technology never solves problems on its own. As the Tech Trends 2024 report highlights, organisations creating meaningful value from generative AI have focused on mindset, fluency and the underpinning operating model as much as they have the technology and data.
Many organisations are starting their generative AI journey through experimentation, building proofs of concept and implementing discrete solutions. While it’s a great place to begin, it won’t be enough to just level up your existing processes: the key is changing the game and solving business problems across your entire value chain. We’re seeing some organisations build on this momentum to seize opportunities to truly transform.
How to start changing the game
Generative AI will continue to evolve rapidly, along with the world around us. That’s why it’s critically important to start now. Explore, experiment, implement – covering this ground today will help E&R organisations adapt to generative AI’s nuances and move quickly when new risks and opportunities emerge. Most importantly, take these steps with a strategic mindset. What drives true value, and what’s just tech for tech’s sake?
To change the game with generative AI, organisations need to keep a beginner’s mindset – the belief that there’s always more to learn. Work to improve your organisation’s generative AI fluency across its leadership team, areas of the business, and actively collaborate with partners and third parties. Generative AI is evolving rapidly so it’s worth gaining experience with a variety of generative AI tools and techniques – it’s nearly impossible to pick a clear winner today but slow movers will be left behind.
Download Tech Trends 2024: An Australian Perspective for a local view on the cutting-edge trends featured in our annual global report, including examples of these trends in action and actionable advice to help separate signal from noise.