Accelerating Utility Rate Case Filings with Generative AI

A rate case is a formal regulatory process in the utility industry in which a company petitions a governing body—typically a Public Utilities Commission (PUC)—to adjust the rates charged to customers. These filings often seek approval for price increases to offset rising operational costs and ensure a sustainable profit margin.

In 2023, U.S. investor-owned utilities submitted rate increase requests totaling $18.13 billion, up from $16.78 billion in 2022. Electric utilities led the way with $13.51 billion in filings, driven by capital investments in transmission and distribution (T&D) upgrades and renewable energy technologies. Gas utilities requested $4.62 billion, largely focused on replacing aging infrastructure.

Despite their importance, rate cases are notoriously complex, costly and time-consuming, often taking 12–18 months to resolve. With approximately 135 filings annually across 700 utilities, the cumulative industry spend ranges from $400 million to $1.35 billion, with individual cases costing between $3 million and $10 million.

The opportunity: GenAI as a strategic accelerator

Our hypothesis is that generative AI (GenAI) can streamline the rate case process, potentially reducing costs by up to 25%.

Key challenges

Repetition: Roughly 80% of the rate case process is standardized, with minimal variation across utilities—primarily due to differences in scale.

Volume: Even mid-sized utilities like Oklahoma Gas & Electric (OG&E), serving ~900,000 customers, file over 100 documents, with that number growing fivefold by the end of the process.

Legal overhead: Legal and consulting fees can account for one-third to half of total costs, driven by extensive back-and-forth with regulators.

GenAI's potential to reduce cost associated with GRC

How can GenAI help?

There are at least two types of GenAI solutions that can deliver significant cost and time savings to the rate case process:

Rate case justification

Leverage publicly available filings to summarize and correlate successful precedents.
Enable utilities to build stronger cases by referencing similar, approved initiatives.

GenAI-powered automation

Pre-filing prep: GRC application template can be drafted from prior filings for a specific utility (as requirements may vary across state lines).
Regulatory compliance: Check filings for required legal language, analyze legal risks, and auto-generate regulatory documents.
Data aggregation: AI can assist in exhibit preparation, testimony support and financial impact analysis.
PUC Interaction: Summarize the list of typical questions from the PUC and draft responses based on urgency and priority.
Decision evaluation: Evaluate final decisions from PUC and assess if rate case filing goals are met.
Stakeholder communication: Draft marketing materials for each stakeholder segment to communicate the outcome of the rate case filing.

Example GenAI prompts about General Rate Case information

Solution architecture

Both use cases can be supported with a Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) architecture, where additional context can be provided through the corpus of existing filings data available in the public domain.

A Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) architecture model for GRC

Conclusion

As regulatory demands grow and infrastructure modernization accelerates, the cost and complexity of rate case filings continue to rise—averaging $3M—$10M per case and consuming 12–18 months per filing. With over $1 billion spent annually across the U.S., the opportunity for transformation is clear.

Generative AI offers a powerful lever to reimagine this process. By automating repetitive tasks, surfacing insights from public filings, and streamlining regulatory communications, GenAI can reduce costs by up to 25%, accelerate timelines, and improve filing quality. The potential impact spans legal, operational, and strategic domains—freeing up internal teams to focus on innovation rather than administration.

At WWT, we combine deep utility expertise with a proven AI delivery framework. Our AI Proving Ground helps clients move from concept to production with speed and confidence, ensuring GenAI solutions are secure, scalable, and aligned with business goals.

If you're ready to explore how GenAI can reshape your rate case strategy—or any other regulatory process—let's start the conversation.