At DTECH 2026, many conversations were dominated by talk of AI—how, and where, it will impact the energy industries and utilities. It’s now abundantly clear that the power grid of the future will require energy-native AI tools—those purpose-built for energy industry applications, not generic use cases.
Factor This featured an interview from DTECH with Abhimanyu Thakur, OATI’s vice president of platforms, who is leading the development and evolution of OATI Genie™. Thakur discussed how OATI is integrating AI into power grid operations using a measured and purposeful approach—one that prioritizes clear use cases over ambiguous functionality. He shared how OATI is answering the challenges of modern utilities, providing situational awareness and actionable insights to power grid operators and executives alike.
Through the landmark partnership between OATI and the California ISO, OATI Genie™ has reduced operator workflows, in some instances, from weeks to minutes, Thakur said.
“We had a lot of interviews with (California ISO) operators to understand the different systems they were looking at and the type of data they were looking at. Once we identified the complexities they were dealing with, we were able to design specific AI techniques within the OATI Genie™ platform to address those use cases,” Thakur said.