‘AI is a central part of our operations,’ reports Hege Skryseth, Executive Vice President for Technology, Digital, and Innovation in Equinor. ‘Moving forward, AI will become even more important for solving industrial tasks safely, faster, more profitably and at scale. With AI, we can analyse seismic data 10 times faster, plan wells and field development in new and better ways and operate our facilities more efficiently. Industrial processes generate vast amounts of data, and we can use AI to “produce” knowledge from this data. This has already been transformative and profitable, even though we are still early in the AI revolution.’

Equinor has a range of AI solutions currently in use, and over a hundred new use cases have been identified by the company.

Solutions that have been implemented include the monitoring of over 700 rotating machines with 24,000 sensors across all company facilities. ‘This predicts failures and maintenance needs, known as predictive maintenance. It improves safety, provides more stable operations, and reduces the risk of sudden shutdowns that can lead to flaring and increased CO₂ emissions. This alone has created value of $120mn since 2020,’ reports Equinor.

Meanwhile, AI-driven planning of wells and field development ‘generates thousands of alternatives, allowing the experts to focus on the best proposals’. In Phase 3 development of the Johan Sverdrup field in the Norwegian North Sea, AI is reported to have ‘found a solution that no one had considered’, saving the partnership $12mn.

AI is also used as a tool to interpret more seismic data, faster – reportedly providing a 10-fold increase in interpretation capacity. ‘A good geological understanding is key to new discoveries,’ says the company. In 2025, 2mn km² were interpreted using the AI tool.

‘Since 2020, we have realised value of over $330mn with artificial intelligence in industrial processes, of which $130mn came in 2025,’ says Skryseth. ‘We primarily use “traditional” machine learning on our operational data. Our employees can use AI tools like copilots, chatbots and agentic AI to solve tasks and work in new ways.’

Equinor aims to maintain production on the Norwegian Continental Shelf at 2020 levels through 2035 – around 1.2mn boe/d.

‘We use AI to interpret more seismic data, plan and drill more wells, and operate our facilities safely and profitably, while also using the technology to optimise energy consumption and reduce CO₂ emissions,’ adds Skryseth.