At the Future Digital Twin & AI Conference Middle East 2025 in Abu Dhabi, Wassim Ghadban of Kent outlined how agentic AI and autonomous digital twins are accelerating a profound shift in industrial practice. He noted that the pace of development has outstripped traditional generative AI narratives, with physical and authentic AI models now interacting directly with assets and reshaping the fundamentals of engineering and operations.
Ghadban described the digital twin as the contextual backbone of industrial intelligence and AI as the decision-making engine that drives autonomy, optimisation, and lifecycle connectivity. Kent’s work spans EPC delivery, cybersecurity studies, remote operations, and O&M enhancement, with a strong focus on improving safety, reducing downtime, and enabling agile, data-informed operations. Delegates were also able to explore live demonstrations of Kent’s Innova AI platform, reflecting recent award-winning deployments across the region.
Central to the session was the need for structured, validated data. With large industrial assets generating vast volumes of information, Ghadban stressed that autonomous systems can only operate safely if the underlying data is accurate and trustworthy. Kent has developed agent-based validation tools to structure, assess, and refine engineering and operational data, supporting use cases such as autonomous well testing, automated design reviews, intelligent handover, and fully autonomous plant operation.
Looking ahead, he envisaged a unified environment where engineering, construction, and operations draw from shared lifecycle data within a single digital twin. Natural-language insights, real-time intelligence, remote operations, emissions analysis, and autonomous workflows will become integral to everyday practice. The opportunity, he concluded, lies not in adopting technology for its own sake, but in applying it responsibly while keeping human oversight at the centre of autonomous systems.
Speakers
