What’s happening across the industry?
Start with what we learned, then look at three real examples.
Read the main findingsSUNYA RESEARCH / OCTOBER 2026What oil & gas companies
What oil & gas companies
are doing with AI.
See how companies use AI, what they say has improved, and what we still don’t know.
What would you like to find out?
New here? Start with the main findings.
What is this company doing?
Choose a company to see what it is working on, what it says has improved and where the information comes from.
How is AI used in my department?
Find examples in production, drilling, maintenance, finance and other teams.
01 / WHAT TO TAKE AWAY
Here’s what stood out.
What does the software actually change?
Devon describes software that changes lift settings. Oxy describes using it to help decide where field crews should focus. In both cases, the software changes what people do next. sources
Before trying something similar, ask who can make the change, what the software is allowed to do and how people check the result.
How a company works matters, too.
EOG builds its own software. EQT brings important processes and communication into a shared digital workspace. That may make it easier to put new tools into everyday use. sources
That could help them put AI to work. We still need to know whether it leads to better results.
A system can be running without telling us what it earns.
We have 196 profiles of companies using AI. The sources describe 133 as in operation, including systems scaled beyond a pilot. Of those, 46 also report a numerical result. The figures measure different things over different periods.
Knowing a system is running is useful. To know whether it pays off, we need a fair comparison, all the costs and evidence that the benefit lasts.
These are our conclusions from the public sources we selected. Some profiles describe parts of the same program. More announcements or a bigger headline number do not tell us which company earns the best return.
02 / THREE REAL EXAMPLES
What does this look like in practice?
These examples show different kinds of work. The numbers measure different things, so they cannot tell us which project earned the best return.
Lift optimization
~2%average oil uplift reported
An operator-authored SPE abstract describes gas-lift optimization across more than 1,300 wells.
The full paper is unavailable. Full project costs and a comparison with wells without the system are not disclosed.
The useful idea is to test wells regularly and adjust their lift settings as conditions change.
Plant process control
10–15%amine and steam reduction reported
Fadhili’s AI process-control case also reports around 5% lower power use. It describes a pilot followed by permanent adoption.
Company-reported results; no project cost or detailed evaluation method. This result comes from a specialist control system.
A language model might help engineers understand what is happening. A tested controller would still make the process changes.
Incoming well-data checks
200+emails per day described
UiPath and Databricks software interprets incoming drilling and completion data and checks its operational context.
Vendor-reported, undated workflow metrics. Current error monitoring and independently verified cash savings are not supplied.
This system already uses AI with other tools. Before rebuilding it, find out what people still have to handle themselves.
03 / WHERE NEW AI TOOLS COULD HELP
Where could ChatGPT-style AI help?
Tools like ChatGPT use large language models, or LLMs. They work well with text. But a model built for a well or a piece of equipment may create more operating value. This chart asks where the value could be, and how much of the work a language model could handle.
Reading information, looking into a problem and drafting a response.
Potential
economic impactRole of a language model
economic impactRole of a language model
Small supporting role
Useful for part of the work
Central to much of the task
High
Medium
Lower
Want to go deeper?
Read the full research report for more charts and the detailed eight-company comparison. Compare companies side by side or work through an idea for your own team.
Selling to operators? Research potential customers or prepare a report with sources.
WHAT’S BEHIND THE REPORT
196 profiles cover companies using AI, across 93 named companies or groups. The full collection has 283 profiles, including products, investments and other related work.
Where this research comes from
We start with earnings materials, investor presentations, company reports and named customer examples. We also cover products, investments, company plans and energy infrastructure serving AI. We keep those separate from companies using AI in their own work.
We searched and reviewed public sources, but we cannot claim to have found every project worldwide. Some profiles overlap. A publication date may be later than the work it describes. We keep each result with its source, period and limitations. If we found no announcement, that does not mean a company is inactive or a project failed.