Creating the Conditions to Scale AI in Regulated Utilities

Utilities are under growing pressure from regulators, investors and boards to demonstrate meaningful efficiency gains from AI, but those expectations do not always translate into clear business cases for delivery at scale. General-purpose AI adoption has created overlapping solutions and pilots with limited ROI, while legacy Operational and Information Technology (OT and IT) systems continue to make change costly and complex. At the same time, functional silos and transformation efforts that have yet to change practical ways of working can make it difficult to scale innovation around end-to-end customer needs. With AI already in operational use across the sector, what needs to change to move from isolated successes to consistently embedded business value?

Leading organisations are looking beyond individual technologies and examining the organisational conditions that determine whether innovation can scale. Data readiness, internal capabilities, operating models, established ways of working and procurement processes can all influence whether organisations are able to experiment effectively and turn successful initiatives into repeatable delivery. As utilities navigate these interconnected challenges, leaders are reconsidering where existing structures create friction, how teams can learn and adapt more quickly, and what needs to change to deliver better outcomes around actual customer and business needs.

Join industry peers to examine where structural and organisational barriers continue to slow AI adoption and what practical changes can help successful initiatives scale. Together, we will share experiences around data readiness, internal capability, operating models, user-centered delivery and procurement, while considering what utilities can learn from previous large-scale transformation efforts.

Public Digital is a transformation consultancy that works with leading commercial organizations, governments, and global institutions, helping them to change their ways of working to become more responsive, adaptable, and impactful.

PD was founded in 2015 in London by leaders from the pioneering Government Digital Service (GDS) and the team behind the award-winning GOV.UK. The founding philosophy was to apply the lessons learned at GDS to help other institutions deliver exceptional, user-focused services and foster long-term change built on trust and internet-era ways of working.

Today, PD is a consultancy of over 100 people with a supporting network of 300 experts, headquartered in London.

We define digital as applying the culture, processes, business models, and technologies of the intelligence era to respond to people's raised expectations. We bring deep experience helping commercial and member-led organizations treat digital as a primary driver of growth, efficiency, and consumer/customer value. We specialize in designing adaptive, responsive operating models on a structural and role level, enabling organizations to attract world-class digital talent, reduce friction, and build digital products internally.

We support large, complex, and highly visible organizations such as the Premier League, Transport for Greater Manchester, HMRC, Nova Scotia Government, BT Group, London North Eastern Railway (LNER), and Sellafield.