Technology and AI in Regulated Energy

Regulatory teams in energy face two pressures at once: the volume of filings keeps growing, and the deadlines don’t move. Researching dockets, analyzing testimony, and turning it into a position still takes days the calendar doesn’t always allow. AI promises relief, so the question comes up fast: should we build our own tool or buy one? But it’s the wrong place to start.

At LET’S GO! 2025, HData’s annual customer conference, Leo Trudel, Principal at the energy advisory firm Realize 2050, walked the audience through a framework for thinking about that question more rigorously. According to Trudel, while there is no universal right answer to build vs. buy, there is a repeatable way to reach the right answer for your organization and your use case. In regulated energy, where the work is complex and the cost of a mistake is high, that discipline matters more than in most fields.

Where Technology Pilots Break Down

Utilities run pilots constantly, but very few of them become production systems.

“The pilot success rate is somewhere around 5%,” Trudel said, because “the capabilities don’t match the requirements.”

That gap shows up when a team brings in technology before it understands three things: the problem it’s solving, what every…