Meet the Experts sessions at Emerson Exchange conferences are a great way to dive deeply into topic areas and have the opportunity to get your questions answered by experts. Emerson’s Rick Kephart, Morgan Lewis, Michael Painter, and Zitara’s Evan Murphy led a session titled “What is Your Power Play? Winning with AI and Machine Learning Solutions” at the Emerson Exchange 2025 Conference. Here is their session abstract.
Power and process industries are rapidly transitioning to meet decarbonization and sustainability goals, requiring a shift towards smarter, more efficient operations.
Join an interactive panel discussion featuring power, renewable, software and automation experts to learn how game-changing, innovative AI and Machine Learning technologies will empower your workforce and optimize your operations. Engage with our distinguished panel as they discuss how AI, generative AI and machine learning are emerging as game-changers for reshaping the energy landscape; provide an overview of each technology and describe the roles each can play in optimizing operations; describe real-world applications and present example GenAI capabilities and customer-driven prompts.
Zitara offers a real-time, on-premises battery energy storage system (BESS) solution that precisely determines the available energy in battery storage systems and intelligently optimizes these operations.
Rick opened by noting that machine learning has been around for a while and is being effectively used in asset management. Generative AI is a relatively new development, but it may be the most significant breakthrough in computer science to date.
How are AI, GenAI, and machine learning different? They are all built on neural networks. Neural networks have been utilized in control strategies, sensor modeling, classification, and other applications. What’s missing is generating new content and seemingly reason. Generative AI combines the output with cross-referencing that traditional AI and machine learning never did. Input and validation are required to establish trust. A human should always be in the loop to validate the output and ensure that nothing falls outside guardrail conditions. For operations and advisory roles, GenAI makes most sense.
LLMs can guide us to the correct answers, but it is up to us to assess and decide. Explainable AI is where it can be understood how the advice was developed, so that it can be more trusted.
Biggest operational gains from AI and machine learning? Taking mass levels of operational data and distilling it into trends and recommendations for action. Machine learning is mathematically intense. Generative AI has more qualitative models, much like the human brain, that take in data and fit it into the model. By combining these qualitative models with machine learning guardrails and explainable AI for trustworthiness, you can achieve something powerful in Industrial AI applications.
What risks or challenges should companies be aware of when implementing Industrial AI? One big challenge is whether it should be cloud-connected or local. Data governance is another big hurdle for organizations to overcome. A concern is using one company’s data to improve the model, as it may benefit their competitors. A poorly built AI system can extract proprietary information, store it, and inadvertently link it to other data, potentially disclosing more sensitive information. There is also a worry that a greater reliance on AI means fewer capabilities to operate without it when needed in a pinch. Also, if it gets something wrong, trust can be broken.
Innovations on the horizon that could further accelerate AI’s impact in the power & process industries? Approximately 90% of generative AI research is being conducted by industry rather than universities. Research is actively exploring how people interact with AI and the cognitive biases they exhibit during these interactions. Work needs to be done on how operators interact with AI.
Optimization is a significant area where AI can help, such as increasing energy efficiency or minimizing asset downtime. AI can help assess the current state of operations and identify areas for improvement.
What advice do you have for organizations? Embrace it now. We are only at the start of this fundamental revolution. As a supplier, Emerson can help meet you where you are, taking on as much as you’re ready for and growing from there. Start small and grow with experts who have domain expertise.
Bold takes? Evan’s take is that avatars are overrated and will become obsolete as we advance further. Mike noted that we need to embrace this technology, but the rewards far exceed the risks. The way we operate plants will be drastically different. Rick said that generative AI will grow throughout the entire automation stack, including control systems, field devices, and network applications.
