At this year’s 2026 Global Energy Show (GES) held in Calgary AB, the Canadian energy sector will shift from abstract discussions about AI to essential adoption strategies designed to unlock more than $10 billion in economic value for the sector by 2035, based on a 2025 Public First research study. UK-based Public First is a global policy and research firm that quantifies the economic impact of some of the world’s leading technology organizations.

In the global race for energy leadership, if data is the new oil, then AI is the layer of intelligence that ensures reliability and lowers costs across the entire value chain.

As Cam Linke, CEO of Amii, prepares to keynote the 2026 Global Energy Show, the focus is on Canada’s unique trajectory. While the country has seen $190 million in total AI-driven economic growth from Amii programs, Alberta has captured $81 million of that total as the single largest contributor to the actual dollars and value generated by Canada’s energy-sector.

Linke will be keynoting “Reliability, Cost, Career: How AI is Transforming the Energy Value Chain” and will also be participating in a panel “AI as Strategic Advantage: How Digital Intelligence Is Reshaping Energy and Industrial Power”.

"We are seeing a massive shift in how energy leaders view AI. It’s no longer only about whether the technology works - it’s about how quickly they can translate value into the $10 billion energy-specific AI opportunity,” says Linke.  And that takes real world applications and also an increasingly skilled energy workforce and in-house AI capabilities.

How Companies Can Sidestep POC Purgatory

Accelerating AI literacy and in-house capabilities with a trusted partner like Amii is essential for energy sector leaders if they are serious about delivering real ROI and global competitiveness with AI. To do so, companies must be able to scale and avoid what analysts call "pilot purgatory" - a state where 88% of AI proofs of concept (POCs) fail to reach full-scale production, according to a 2025 IDC study.

Amii combines world-class university research with AI literacy and applied research and development to tackle the world’s most complex industrial systems and challenges. The goal is to help the institute’s industry partners be part of the 12% that successfully scale, not the 88% whose innovations stall before they can ever get implemented. According to Public First, Amii’s training programs have already unlocked $300 million in productivity gains across Canada, creating long‑term competitive advantage.

Upskilling Builds Sustainable Resilience

For the energy sector specifically and with the support of the Government of Canada’s Sectoral Workforce Solutions Program and the Sustainable Jobs Training Fund, Amii launched AI Pathways: Energizing Canada’s Energy Workers, a fully funded initiative for learners to empower nearly 6,000 energy workers with the technical fluency required to stay competitive and designed to create the most AI-literate workforce in the world. In a market saturated with generic training, AI Pathways distinguishes itself through a localized curriculum tailored specifically for industrial application.

^{“Investing and upskilling Canadian workers ensures they can adapt and succeed in an energy sector that’s changing faster than ever.” In September, Patty Hajdu, Minister of Jobs and Families, announced a partnership with Amii to train energy workers in AI skills. The $10.4 million investment will train 6,000 Canadian energy workers for a low-carbon future.}

"It was really great having such pointed subject-matter expertise; it was very clear throughout the course that the people who designed it knew a lot about energy and utilities. It's not a general generic AI course. It's something that's actually geared to what I'm doing,” says Berkeley Wilson, a Utilities Specialist and AI Pathways learner.

Energy companies working with Amii are finding that the secret to escaping 'pilot purgatory' isn't just better code - it’s better wayfinding and clarity on how to navigate organizational change, priorities, processes, governance, and implementation. By prioritizing AI literacy and rapid skill development, these firms are building resiliency within the sector.

“We are upskilling energy workers and helping energy companies accelerate AI adoption while building out their own internal capacity. As a result, as we move toward 2035, the people powering the energy sector will have the tools to lead AI innovation, including launching and maintaining new AI models within their own systems, processes, and business culture,” says Marlene McNaughton, Chief Revenue Officer at Amii, who leads the industry partnership team that works directly with clients. “Working with Amii is about de-risking the innovation cycle,” she says.

Amii has worked with more than 750 industry partners on more than 900 projects, and the institute’s AI literacy programs have impacted more than 1.2 million individuals.

RL Core Technologies Self-Optimizing System

A standout example of AI’s impact in the energy and utilities sector is RL Core Technologies, a startup co-founded by Amii Fellows and Canada CIFAR Chairs Martha White and Adam White. By leveraging Reinforcement Learning (RL) - a field where Amii researchers lead globally - RL Core has transformed industrial water treatment from a reactive process into a self-optimizing system.

Water treatment is a critical, energy-intensive industry responsible for approximately 4% of global energy consumption. RL Core’s software learns and adapts in real-time, dynamically adjusting setpoints to optimize chemical use and energy flow. In real-world deployments across Alberta and British Columbia, the technology has delivered a 10 - 20% annual efficiency boost, saving thousands in resources and maintenance costs.

This "human-in-the-loop" approach doesn't replace operators; instead, it empowers them with an intelligent control layer that ensures more reliable, sustainable, and cost-effective operations, proving that AI can deliver measurable industrial performance today.

^{"Reinforcement learning (RL) is transforming industrial control systems. A recent pilot in using RL agents working alongside human workers to optimize operations at an Alberta water treatment plan led to increased efficiency, lower costs and longer equipment life, highlighting the potential to revolutionize energy generation and distribution."}

Businesses Partner Directly with Amii to Build Global Competitiveness

Before collaborating with Amii, Enerva’s internal AI expertise was limited. An energy services and engineering firm that helps industrial and commercial clients identify efficiency savings, reduce emissions and improve performance through data-driven analysis, Enerva partnered with Amii to validate ideas for time-series forecasting and chatbot features.

Doing so, Enerva built its internal capability while building a proprietary machine learning model of their own. Amii’s training programs and structured workshops provided the foundation and a dedicated machine learning scientist supported by the Amii team undertook development. The work is highly transferable, with the potential for these same AI approaches to be applied to process optimization and quality control across many other sectors.

The Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute (Amii) is one of Canada's three National AI Institutes. Based in Alberta, Amii supports world-leading research in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) and translates scientific advancement into industry adoption. Amii is dedicated to advancing leading-edge research, delivering exceptional educational offerings, and providing business advice - all to bring AI out of the lab and into the world. www.amii.ca.