How AI and robotics are transforming energy infrastructure

Speaking to Energy Connects ahead of Gecko Robotics' participation at ADIPEC 2025, Jake Loosararian, co-founder and CEO shares his insights on how artificial intelligence is revolutionising the global energy landscape by reshaping systems, empowering talent, and unleashing bold, cross-industry innovation.

As we increasingly hear about energy for AI, and AI for energy, how can AI become a powerful enabler of new energy production rather than just being a consumer of it?

Energy helps to power artificial intelligence, but we don’t talk about the importance of AI powering energy. That refers to the data sets we need to be able to drive more production with the same infrastructure, with less downtime and fewer dangerous incidents, and the ability to reduce emissions. Robots and AI from the Gecko landscape have been able to uncover the ability to create data sets that never existed before, about things in the physical world. Gathering information and data sets on how assets are performing helps to drive the ability to optimise how every single component and asset that powers our energy sector, actually works. It’s the ability to create more with less, and it’s the ability to ensure that we never have a catastrophic failure.

What makes AI successful and why are 95% of AI companies failing to deliver results? What are the challenges that you often see for energy companies trying to implement AI solutions?

While the AI algorithms are quite incredible, they are nothing without the input that goes into those models. The data sets that exist are immense, and we know very little about those that have not been digitised, that must drive the data inputs into these algorithms. This is why most AI solutions fail; because the math that’s being run in the algorithms is just a byproduct of the data sets that are driving the insights. That’s why Gecko is one of the 5% of companies delivering meaningful impact and ROI, because we go out and collect this data with our robots to power our AI.

Could you share a case study with us where this has actually made a difference in terms of operations or efficiency?

Our tools and technologies use robotics and sensors to first go out and gather information about the health and performance of some of the most critical assets like flare lines, alky units, and storage tanks. Companies including ADNOC have been able to leverage that, and around the world we’re saving months of potential asset downtime. We eliminate and transform what turnarounds mean in refineries. Our ambition is to ensure we get more production, and that we never have downtime if we don’t want it.

How does the use of robotics support greater safety at facilities when it comes to assessing the health of critical infrastructure?

Every cent counts in a barrel. The inability to gather information and then digitise it reduces the ability of tools like AI algorithms to be able to drive better insights. So the ability to gather tens of millions times more data, and digitise it with robots about the health and performance of critical assets allows our AI models to be able to extend the useful life, predict where problems are going to occur, and optimise how those assets are able to perform. We do this with things like ultrasonics, cameras, and phased array technologies. We’re called the doctors of the built world due to the ability to diagnose the health and the performance of these assets, because we’re trying to get more energy by using less.

How does AI empower graduates and young engineers, and equip them with the same level of knowledge as veterans of the industry?

As energy demand increases, so does the demand for skilled labour that’s in short supply. The ability to be an expert in these sectors sometimes takes 20 to 30 years, and we just don’t have that time frame. So robots and AI that we build enable people to sense these things with only a few months of experience to become an expert. Then the AI allows them to analyse and make decisions using better data sets, that reduce the amount of experience and knowledge that they had to have previously.