Utilities

From substation to control room: AI utilities can explain and audit

A regulated utility can't adopt AI it can't explain or audit. IRIS Foundry's governed data foundation and IRIS Flows' human-in-the-loop autonomy mean every recommendation and every automated action comes with a clear, auditable reason behind it — not a black box.

Electric, gas, and water utilities operate under regulatory oversight from bodies like NERC, PHMSA, state public utility commissions, and the EPA. IRIS Foundry unifies SCADA, GIS, EHS, and maintenance data with full lineage and audit trail, the core requirement for a regulated buyer evaluating AI.

From manual inspections to fragmented compliance data, IRIS Foundry and IRIS Flows address the real operational pressures utilities face under regulatory oversight.

AI that can't be explained or audited

Generic AI models make recommendations without a clear, traceable reason, a nonstarter for a regulated utility that has to justify every action.

Manual, paper-based inspections

Paper checklists and walkdowns slow safety and compliance work and leave a thin, hard-to-audit paper trail.

Regulatory reporting burden

NERC (North American Electric Reliability Corporation), PHMSA (Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration), state public utility commissions, and the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) all expect documentation utilities have to produce largely by hand today.

Reliability metrics under pressure

SAIDI (System Average Interruption Duration Index), SAIFI (System Average Interruption Frequency Index), and outage frequency and duration are measured closely, and substation and transformer failures put all three at risk.

Wildfire and vegetation risk exposure

Weather and vegetation conditions around assets change constantly, and spotting physical risk early usually depends on someone driving the line.

Fragmented data across SCADA, GIS, EHS, and maintenance systems

Without one unified, audit-ready view, root cause analysis and compliance reporting both take longer than they should.

12 weeks
Typical time to first production value with IRIS Foundry, versus 12–24 months for build-your-own approaches.
300+
Pre-built industrial agents included with IRIS Foundry and IRIS Flows, ready to deploy across regulated utility operations.

From digitized inspections to governed automation, IRIS Foundry, Forge, and Flows apply one unified, audit-ready data foundation to the use cases that matter most for compliance and reliability.

Connected Worker: digital inspections and safety walkdowns

Replace paper checklists with guided, hands-free digital workflows for field and safety teams.

Integrity inspections for regulated infrastructure

Run inspections for substations, pipelines, transformers, and similar equipment subject to inspection requirements.

Incident and near-miss reporting

Log every event and every action taken with a full audit trail, from first report to resolution.

Predictive maintenance for substations and transformers

Predict failures on substations, transformers, and other T&D assets tied directly to SAIDI, SAIFI, and outage frequency and duration.

Wildfire and vegetation risk management

Assess risk around assets from weather and vegetation conditions, including drone and aerial imagery that flags damaged equipment or missing safety gear.

Environmental and emissions compliance reporting

Automate the reporting utilities already have to produce for environmental and emissions compliance.

One unified, audit-ready view of data

Bring SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition), GIS (geographic information system), EHS (environmental, health, and safety), and maintenance systems together into a single view built for compliance, not just operations.

AI assistant that explains its reasoning

Get the evidence and logic behind every answer, not just the answer, so a person can verify it before acting.

Need a different app? Build it with IRIS Forge.

IRIS Forge turns your operational requirements into production-ready AI applications from a natural-language prompt. If the use case you need isn't listed here, it's one prompt away.

One governed data foundation, one way to build new AI applications, and one layer of auditable agentic execution, built to work together across regulated operations.

IRIS Foundry

The governed data foundation — data is unified with full lineage and audit trail, the core requirement for a regulated buyer.

Explore IRIS Foundry >
IRIS Forge

Build a new application from a plain-language description when a specific compliance or operational need isn't already covered.

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IRIS Flows

Agentic execution, governed — every automated action is logged, explainable, and subject to human approval before it executes.

Explore IRIS Flows >

Talk to an expert who knows utility compliance — not just industrial AI.