EEI 2025 Underscores AI's Critical Role in Solving Utility Challenges

Utility stakeholders convened in New Orleans earlier this month for EEI 2025, Edison Electric Institute's premier annual conference and thought leadership forum. Drawing executives from around the country, the conference served as a temperature check on how utilities hope to address surging energy demand driven by electrification and data center expansion while enhancing reliability in the face of extreme weather events. 

The conference covered everything from grid resilience to supply chain stability and preventing wildfires. Yet it was artificial intelligence (AI) that emerged as the dominant thread — a trend that tracks the conference's macro shift in focus from regulation to technology in recent years. In fact, AI quite literally took center stage last year with a keynote from NVIDIA CEO and founder Jensen Huang. 

But while last year focused more on the conceptual potential of AI, this year centered on practical adoption. 

AI evolves from conceptual to concrete

EEI 2025 offered a look at how utilities are increasingly pursuing practical AI use cases. Ones that garnered particular attention from leaders at the conference included: 

• Outage detection: AI can help utilities detect and prevent outages more effectively, reducing downtime and improving reliability.
• Wildfire prevention: AI can be used to detect and prevent wildfires, helping utilities mitigate the risk of fire-related damage and service interruptions.
• Load growth calculation: AI can improve the accuracy of load growth forecasts, helping utilities plan for expansion and new interconnections so they can allocate resources more efficiently.
• Efficiency improvement: Speaking of efficiency, AI can improve overall efficiency by optimizing operations and resource management, helping utilities meet growing demands with existing resources.

In the spirit of practical, early AI adoption, we were proud to present our work with Southern California Edison (SCE) in the conference's learning hub. WWT partnered with the West Coast utility on a bespoke AI-driven platform deployed in its network operations center (NOC).

The solution reduces downtime through predictive insights, accelerates ticket resolution with a generative AI (GenAI) chatbot, and optimizes resources for better scalability. By integrating AI automation, SCE is driving productivity and supporting a more sustainable, cost-effective infrastructure. 

It's an early step on a roadmap toward predictive AI agents and full situational awareness. And it does so without adding headcount or requiring large capital investments. 

The solution's affordability and room for incremental growth resonated with attendees. A common theme at EEI 2025 was the uncomfortable reality that electric utilities will need to deploy far more infrastructure assets — sensors, control devices, etc. — without increasing operations and maintenance budgets. AI-centric platforms like SCE's are seen as one of the few scalable ways to meet that challenge today. 

Culture is key

At EEI 2025, utility leaders made clear that deploying AI is just as much a cultural endeavor as it is a technical one. While they acknowledged the need to move fast on AI, they also recognized that it can't come at the cost of abandoning a safety-first culture.

Several leaders framed the issue not as a need to abandon caution, but to modernize within its guardrails. They emphasized "safe innovation" — the idea that it's possible to embrace emerging technologies like AI while still honoring the values that define utility culture.

Achieving this balance is now a leadership priority, with executives increasingly asking:

• How do we build a culture around AI adoption, education and capability that supports faster, smarter decisions without undermining safety?
• How do we structure teams and workflows to support AI adoption without creating disruption?

The answers won't come overnight, but the signal from EEI 2025 was evident: Technology alone isn't enough. Organizational readiness and cultural maturity are just as essential to long-term AI success.

Looking ahead

EEI 2025 demonstrated that AI is no longer a future concept for utilities. It's a present-day requirement that's already driving new thinking, new partnerships and new approaches to operations.

Whether it's streamlining NOC workflows, enhancing wildfire prevention or improving load forecasting, utilities are starting to apply AI to real challenges in the field. This year's conference imparted invaluable advice on how they can do so well and with minimal risk. 

While no one can predict exactly how the industry will evolve, one thing is certain: AI will be central to the next era of energy. EEI 2025 gave utility leaders a clear sense of how to move forward with confidence, caution and a commitment to practical transformation.