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Industry Insights

Artificial Intelligence Reaches the Utility Industry

May 02, 2023

In recent weeks there has been an onslaught of news headlines pertaining to the fears of Artificial Intelligence (AI) after Google released its chatbot, Bard. Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai said “every product of every company” will be impacted by the quick development of AI, warning that society needs to prepare for AI technologies. In January 2023 Microsoft announced that its search engine Bing would include OpenAI’s GPT technology. Even the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office is aware of the AI revolution and has launched hearings for listening sessions (I find that term ironic) that could determine whether AI systems can get full or partial credit as inventors of new ideas that could be granted patent protection.

Last year, Itron's Tory Neuenschwander and Mike Ting published a whitepaper on autonomous managed EV charging through the use of AI that can be found on Itron’s DEM webpage. Utilities are our trusted partners and this paper demonstrates Itron’s concern and social responsibility for the use of AI in its solutions.

By Paige Schaefer

Sr Forecast Analyst

Paige Schaefer is a Product Marketing Manager in Itron’s Outcomes group for the strategy, planning and implementation of projects supporting marketing functions spanning electricity, water and gas business units. She interacts directly with sales, product and corporate marketing to identify new marketing opportunities, recommend actions and the coordination of targeted campaigns to increase brand awareness and market share where she works closely with the teams to develop content and strategies. In addition, she provides website support, event coordination and manages Itron’s Energy Forecasting Group (EFG), which supports end-use data development, the Statistical End-use Approach (SAE) and coordinates their annual meeting for discussing modeling and forecasting issues. Paige has a B.S. in Business Administration from San Diego State University with an emphasis in Marketing.