A to B: Turning Artificial Intelligence into Business Intelligence

In the race for Artificial Intelligence (AI), many forget the most important part: the human being behind it.

1 + 1 >2

“When it comes to AI, we’re trying to make 1+1 greater than 2,” explains Suchismita (Suchi) Sanyal, India Strategy Manager, ExxonMobil.

“It’s not AI versus humans — it’s AI plus humans — because someone still needs to know how to ask AI the right question and validate the answer with physical reality.”

Having worked for other global energy companies in India, Suchismita knows they are all trying to use AI and computational data to achieve better results and improve society. Knowing how to ask the right questions, and access to more than a century of domain knowledge, is what sets ExxonMobil’s Bangalore Technology Center apart.

The Trinity = AI + domain knowledge + engineering expertise

Suchi adds that ExxonMobil is “not building AI in isolation in an ivory tower: we’re using AI and our people’s skills to solve real challenges.”

One is by breaking down the bottlenecks in our operations. With so many moving parts in oil-and-gas production, a delay or mechanical issue in one section can have flow-on effects that could slow down other parts of our operations.

“Working with our production team, we use AI to monitor equipment in real time and identify any potential bottlenecks that could limit production today or in the future. We then work closely with asset operators and production engineers to remove those bottlenecks and keep everything flowing smoothly,” says Suchi.

AI can see the bigger picture and break down performance puzzles in ways humans cannot. It also automates basic tasks, helping to free up our engineers to focus on the more intellectually challenging opportunity sets. This ultimately helps shortens the time cycle of innovation and implementation.