The energy industry is now providing global leaders in AI adoption, with some of the sector’s heavy-hitters making inroads into a league dominated by the big digital technology firms.
SLB, Chevron, and Halliburton all feature among the top 20 companies in the S&P 500 index in terms of their AI orientation and implementation, alongside the likes of Microsoft, Google and Meta, according to a recent study from the AI-Driven Enterprise (AIDE) Institute.
SLB was positioned second, sandwiched between table topper NVIDIA and third-placed Amazon. That ranking in the AIDE index reflects the company’s significant commitment to AI – it is also the only large oilfield services company to have set up a standalone digital division. Energy utilities and infrastructure firms featuring in the top 20 included AES, NextEra Energy and Duke Energy.
The institute used data derived from sources such as job postings, patent applications and earnings call transcripts to assess how firms are shaping up against their peers in AI adoption.
Paul Cheek, AIDE’s founder and a senior lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management, told CNBC in June that, despite wider AI adoption, his survey covering over 10,000 board members and top executives showed that a huge gap in AI literacy persisted at the highest level in many companies.
While the AIDE index seeks to compare approaches to AI implementation, it does not look at the impact of AI on company profitability.
Survival strategy
For many, it remains to be seen whether the long-term financial gains derived from digital technologies will fully justify the heavy upfront investment costs. But Cheek said the success of AI deployment should not be viewed solely in the context of return on investment, but also as way to ensure that firms do not lose out to more efficient, AI-powered competitors.
“It is critical that companies across all sectors prioritise this transition right now. To put it bluntly: the risk is of your organization’s obsolescence. The risk is that a company using AI will replace your company. We simply cannot afford that in the energy sector,” he said in a media post.
Meanwhile, Morgan Stanley strategists said in a July research note that investors should broaden their interest beyond the tech giants to consider other firms starting to see an impact on their earnings from AI deployment and development. Among energy sector firms mentioned were Halliburton and NextEra Energy.
The Morgan Stanley team, led by Michael Wilson, said the outlook for AI adopters was becoming compelling. The researchers said AI adoption should be seen as an important source of earnings growth and operating leverage at a time of economic uncertainty. They predicted that momentum would build behind firms successfully deploying AI as a cost-saving measure and a driver of productivity and growth.
Morgan Stanley said a quarter of S&P 500 firms reported measurable benefits from AI adoption in the second quarter 2026, compared to 14% a year earlier.
Oilfield services firms are playing a crucial role in helping other companies to realise those benefits, as well as adopting AI across their own operations. SLB said earlier this year that AI and digital services were helping to offset operational turbulence in the Middle East.
Job creator?
AIDE’s Cheek said the potential for AI adoption to lead to net job losses at large companies may yet prove to be overstated, with the possibility that AI could create more jobs than it takes from the economy.
That was a view also expressed by speakers at the recent Future Oil & Gas Conference in Aberdeen, including Shane McArdle, CEO of digital twin developer Falkor.
“I’m becoming less and less concerned about jobs just disappearing – certain tasks will go or change, but higher productivity should also create room to employ more people in different areas,” he said.
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