FDTUSA2026_Post_Event_Report

O F F IC IAL D I GI TA L TWI N PA RT N E R

Future Digital Twin & AI

USA 2026 13th May 2026 | Houston | Norris Conference Center

#FDTUSA2026 #futuredigitaltwin

Foreword by ADAM SOROKA I

t was great to welcome industry leaders,

insight, improve decision-making, and support

innovators, and technology specialists to Houston

more efficient and reliable performance across

for the fourth edition of Future Digital Twin &

assets and facilities.

AI (USA). Bringing together experts f rom across the energy value chain, the event provided an

There was also a strong recognition that

opportunity to explore how digital twins and

technology alone does not drive transformation.

artificial intelligence are shaping the future of

Conversations around workforce enablement,

industrial operations.

change management, and Human-AI collaboration reinforced the importance of ensuring people

The discussions throughout the day reflected an

remain at the centre of the digital journey.

industry that is moving beyond experimentation and focusing on practical application. Across the

Looking ahead, discussions around agentic AI,

programme, speakers shared insights into how

autonomous operations, and connected digital

digital twins and AI are being integrated into

ecosystems offered a glimpse into the next stage of

operations, engineering, and asset management,

industrial innovation. Whilst the opportunities are

with a growing emphasis on delivering measurable

significant, there was a shared understanding that

business outcomes.

progress must be guided by clear objectives, strong governance, and a focus on real operational value.

One theme that came through clearly was the importance of getting the foundations right.

On behalf of Cavendish Group International, I would

Governance, interoperability, cybersecurity, data

like to thank our advisory board, speakers, sponsors,

quality, and organisational alignment were all

partners, exhibitors, and delegates for their

recurring topics, highlighting the need to build

contribution to Future Digital Twin & AI (USA) 2026.

digital capabilities that are trusted, scalable, and fit

Your expertise, support, and willingness to share

for long-term use.

knowledge helped make this year’s event a success, and we look forward to continuing these important

The relationship between AI and digital twins was

conversations in the future.

also a major focus. Rather than being developed in isolation, these technologies are increasingly

Adam Soroka

working together to provide deeper operational

CEO, Cavendish Group International

#FDTUSA2026 #futuredigitaltwin

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O F F IC IA L D I GI TA L TWI N PA RTN E R

Press Release FUTURE DIGITAL TWIN & AI USA SHOWCASES INDUSTRY ADVANCES

The Future Digital Twin & AI USA conference,

Adam Soroka, CEO, Cavendish Group and Future

returned to Houston on 13th May 2026 for its fourth

Events, said the conference had demonstrated

edition, once more providing a vibrant forum for

once again how much appetite there was among

industry experts to exchange insights on the fast

influential people in the energy industry to

changing digital landscape across the oil and gas

collaborate and learn f rom each other.

sector.

“Digital twins and AI-driven processes had moved More than 300 delegates f rom over 160 organisations

f rom being niche tools to really something

packed into the Norris Conference Center to

foundational in the oil and gas industry. But, of

take advantage of the learning and networking

course, the digital twin and AI journey does not

opportunities on offer.

come without challenges. That’s what makes these events so important, by providing the chance, not

The event attracted attendees f rom across the

just to discuss the success stories, but also to share

energy industry, bringing together leading figures

how early failures were surmounted to get to those

from operators, oilfield service companies, AI

successes,” he said.

solutions providers and other technology innovators, along with energy institutes and associations and

He also reinforced the message of numerous

academic institutions. High profile companies

speakers at the event on that humans would

sharing their expertise included ExxonMobil, Shell,

remain the lifeblood of the industry, despite greater

bp, Chevron, Siemens Energy, Wood Group, Dow

automation:

Chemicals and DNV, among many others, “For all the brilliant technology, if your people aren’t The degree to which AI is now being integrated

with you – f rom the boardroom to the oilfield, from

at every level of the energy industry was clear at

your AI experts to non-specialist end-users – the

the event. Discussions embraced diverse topics

journey is going to be wasted. In Houston, we heard

ranging f rom the benefits and challenges of digital

how AI needs to be understood as an advance that

twin implementation to data management and

can amplify what the workforce is doing, not replace

governance, via the latest thinking on how AI

it.”

can best empower the workforce and how crossindustry collaboration is making the use of digital technologies more effective.

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PANELLISTS Here’s what some of the experts said at Future Digital Twin and AI USA 2026:

JAYANTH NAIR Senior Data & GenAI Lead, Wood Group “Don’t use AI just for the sake of it: clearly HOLLY FRANKENFIELD

identify your desired business outcome f irst.”

Chief Transformation Off icer at Energy Point Consulting “The future isn’t humans or AI. The future is humans plus AI.”

PRASANNA TANKHIWALE Senior Manager, Digitalisation, Motiva

TARUN DHALL

Enterprises

Head of Digital Advisory & Consulting , Siemens

“Invest in people as much as you invest in

Energy

technology.”

“Democratization of data is better for propagation of AI systems.”

PEDRO ALCÂNTARA EVP and Chief Revenue Off icer at Falkor “We need to train our workforces to know

JESSICA HANCOCK

when to trust the system.”

Director, IT/OT Data Management Business Process Director at Dow Chemicals “Challenging the status quo and speaking up when things are not working well with AI are OK.”

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O F F IC IA L D I GI TA L TWI N PA RTN E R

STATISTICS

300+

18

Attendees

Sessions

94% Likely to attend event again

167

Organisations

36

Speakers

94% Rated the usefulness of the event as excellent or good

88% Would recommend the event to others

32%

19%

16%

Operators

Technology Companies

Oilfield Service

5

Companies

Key TAKEAWAYS Don’t use AI just for the sake of it – have clear goals Have a clear idea of what AI deployment is expected to achieve in your work, Jayanth Nair, Senior Data & GenAI Lead, Wood Group, told delegates.

“Do you have a clearly defined business outcome or are you just trying to use AI for the sake of using AI? If you can identify a clearly defined bottleneck you’re trying to overcome, then the chances are the AI solution will be adopted and used.”

Speakers also stressed the need to understand what value digital twins and other AI-driven innovations would bring.

Elizabeth Huang, Senior Manager, Data & Digital Innovation, at Shell also stressed the need to understand the value of digital twins and other AI-driven innovations.

“If we have the right mindset and we have the right culture, then we can adapt to the new technologies becoming available to us to realize our business goals. Understanding where and how value is created in the business is important to keep in mind when it comes to the AI transformation. We need to have line of sight to the value at the end of the day,” she said.

AI is speeding up product delivery The benefits to the energy industry of AI adoption are starting to feed through to the bottom line.

As one senior director at a global digital technology firm said at the event: “We are seeing is the ability to shrink the time and work needed between data and decision-making through using AI. We have seen improvement in the cost and time needed to modernize certain software by more than 40%, which is remarkable.”

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O F F IC IA L D I GI TA L TWI N PA RTN E R

The workforce needs to know when to trust AI Pedro Alcântara, EVP and Chief Revenue Officer at Falkor told delegates that calibrating trust on the use of AI within the workforce is an ongoing focus at his company.

“To use an aviation analogy – pilots are trained to trust intelligent systems over intuition in areas where, statistically, human knowledge will fail compared to systems, but they are also trained to override automation when needed. We need to train our workforce in a similar way so that they will know when to trust the system, and when to apply human judgment,” he said.

Part of the solution is to make sure the workforce is well informed about how AI arrive at its conclusions. As Michiel Van Haersma Buma, CCO of Whitespace Solutions said: “Explainability is important. Initially, users experienced our well design software like a bit of a black box, so we designed an agent that allows the user to interrogate the software on different aspects the design decisions, radically changing the way they experience the software.”

Collaboration is crucial Companies have invested heavily in digital twins, analytics, and other digital technology, but struggle to realise the full potential of those investments due to the impact of data silos, proprietary platforms, interoperability problems and problematic integration with existing systems.

Collaboration within and between organisations is seen as vital if those bottlenecks are to be removed – and progress is being made towards greater sharing of breakthroughs and data without compromising proprietary solutions.

Groups such as the Open Digital Ecosystem Working Group within the ARC Advisory Group, and the Digital Twin Consortium are among organisations doing the pioneering work.

“Part of the drive towards standardisation is greater openness and collaboration between organisations,” one digital technology leader at a major oil and gas company told attendees.

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Key TAKEAWAYS Don’t lock down your data Meaghan Snethlage, VP of Business Development, VEERUM explained the benefits of allowing users to access data via conduits such as digital twins.

“We leverage insights to drive value, reduce cost, improve safety, and enhance operational performance. By putting that data directly into users’ hands through technologies like digital twins, organizations gain a clear line of sight into which data matters most, where the gaps are, and how to continuously improve it,” she told the conference.

Tarun Dhall, Head of Digital Advisory & Consulting , Siemens Energy, also made the case for democratization of data.

“Usually with a strategic asset in the energy sector, the instant reaction is protection, but data is very different. You cannot just lock it down and protect it. More democratization of data is better for propagation of the AI systems,” he said.

Invest in people, not just technology “Invest in people as much as you invest in technology. I think that’s the most important aspect of developing AI applications across the organization. I think that’s going to make or break the deal,” Prasanna Tankhiwale, Senior Manager, Digitalisation at Motiva Enterprises, told the event.

Holly Frankenfield, Chief Transformation Officer at Energy Point Consulting, emphasized that human input would remain crucial in the AI age.

“The future isn’t humans or AI. The future is humans plus AI. The organizations that win in AI won’t necessarily be the ones with the most advanced technology, they’ll be the ones that figure out how to combine technology with human expertise: how to align it, how to embed it, and how to sustain it,” she said.

Autonomous AI-driven operations are gaining traction – up to a point In the same way the world is coming round to autonomous driving, the energy industry is likely to become more accepting of a certain level of autonomy from AI applications, depending on the context, even if caution is the watchword for now.

“It’s like a dial we are turning, where gradually we’re getting more comfortable outsourcing certain levels of decisions.

That’s going to go up over time as the tech becomes more capable,” Whitespace Solutions’ Michiel Van Haersma Buma said.

#FDTUSA2026 #futuredigitaltwin

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O F F IC IA L D I GI TA L TWI N PA RTN E R

Change management is hard – accept your limitations You can be great at problem solving, and solution building, but terrible at change management. Don’t think you can do it all by yourself, Marty Dytrych, Director, Bolo AI told attendees “Looking in the mirror has been quite important for us. We realized we were not at all good at change management, so we have partnered with people who are, whether they are internal stakeholders or companies we work alongside. That allowed our technology to shine, but also to communicate that success and develop an effective strategy moving forward. Since we’ve made that shift, things have just started to pop,” he said.

Data governance remains a challenge Organizations are starting to get a better understanding of what a data governance strategy means in the context of AI deployment, but there is still some way to go, Siemen’s Energy’s Tarun Dhall told attendees “Oil and gas has been a very conservative industry from a change point of view – data governance for AI has been a massive change for us. We ‘re very good on governance for safety and other things, but we are not prepared for data governance. We are getting there, but we’re not there yet.”

People need to feel free to criticise AI, if it isn’t working AI promises to revolutionise the workplace, but it is there to assist people, not be imposed on them. If it isn’t improving outcomes, it isn’t doing its job, and people need to have the freedom to criticize it.

Jessica Hancock, Director, IT/OT Data Management Business Process Director at Dow Chemicals, told the event: “People need to be able to speak up if the solutions being provided aren’t working for them or they don’t find them effective to get their jobs done. We need to create a space where challenging the status quo and speaking up when things are not working well with AI is OK.”

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Future Digital Twin TESTIMONIALS

“Future Digital Twin & AI was real, with a well-rounded programme, exceptional people, and zero AI buzzwords. Just real-world experience and hard challenges exchanged openly, exactly the kind of cross-industry collaboration that promotes meaningful progress.”

Bernardo Braunstein, Manager, Operational Technology, OT Data, Noble Corporation

“What makes Future Digital Twin & AI stand out is the balance between visionary thinking and practical operational discussions. The conversations go beyond technology hype and focus on the real challenges organisations face around trust, adoption, governance, workforce readiness, and scaling transformation successfully.”

Julie Thyne, Global Improvement Director, Dow “It was great to participate again this year.

An amazing event to learn from others, share insights, and network with both industry leaders and those supporting the sector.”

Jeff Ackerman, Business Development Director - Oil & Gas, Sand Technologies

#FDTUSA2026 #futuredigitaltwin

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Advisory Board ADVISORY BOARD Khaled Al Blooshi, VP, Digital Projects & Innovation, ADNOC Martin R. Gonzalez, PhD, Innovation & Technology Principal, bp Michael Hotaling, Executive Advisor, ExxonMobil Julie Thyne, Global Improvement Director, Dow Chemicals Athicha Dhanormchitphong, Digital Realities Ecosystem Architect, ExxonMobil Ram Seetepalli, Director, Data & Analytics & Digital Innovation, Motiva Enterprises LLC Rolf Einar Saeter, Global Digital Twin Innovation Lead, Shell Dr.Edmary Altamiranda , Business Transformational Technology & R and D Lead, Controls & Systems Engineering Aker BP Adam Williams, Senior Manager, Engineering Technology & Design, Motiva Enterprises LLC Justin Piwetz, Asset Management Lead, bp Seth Taylor, Digital Twin Advisor and Technical Manager, Chevron Shane McArdle, CEO, Falkor

#FDTUSA2026 #futuredigitaltwin

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Speakers SPEAKERS Adam Williams, Senior Manager, Engineering Technology & Design, Motiva Enterprises LLC Seth Taylor, Digital Twin Advisor and Technical Manager, Chevron Julie Thyne, Global Improvement Director, Dow Chemicals Ram Seetepalli, Director, Data & Analytics & Digital Innovation, Motiva Enterprises LLC Cristi Nastase, Senior Principle Enterprise Architect, GenAI, ExxonMobil Bernardo Braunstein, Manager, Operational Technology, OT Data, Noble Corporation Prasanna Tankhiwale, Senior Manager, Digitalisation, Motiva Enterprises LLC Chris Whillmore, Digital Manager, Guyana Digital Alliance, ExxonMobil Elizabeth Huang, Senior Manager, Data & Digital Innovation, Shell Jessica Hancock, Director, IT/OT Data Management Business Process Director, Dow Chemicals Bharat Marwaha, Process Data Analytics & Condition Monitoring Lead, Covestro Shivaprasad Sankesha Narayana, Lead Cloud & AI Architect, bp Omar Omar, Senior Advisor, AI Engineering, Phillips66 Dipti Sankpal, Manager, IT Analytics & AI Enablement, Oxy Lisa Sacco, North America Commercial Brand & Marketing Manager, ExxonMobil Reza Khaninezhad, Data Science Manager, Apache Jayanth Nair, Senior Data & GenAI Lead, Wood Group Jay Yun, Founder and CEO, SIMACRO Shane McArdle, CEO, Falkor Meaghan Snethlage, VP of Business Development, VEERUM Donna King, CEO, Energy Point Consulting Dr. Gerhard Koch, Chief Software & Product Officer, Siemens Energy Tarun Dhall, Head of Digital Advisory & Consulting , Siemens Energy Prashant Jagarlapudi, Senior Director, Portfolio Management, Honeywell Process Automation Jeff Ackerman, Business Development Director, Oil and Gas, Sand Technologies Vitor Lopes Pereira, Regional Sales Manager, Missions, Systems & Digital Twin Solutions, Synopsys Kenneth Bhalla, Ph.D., SVP & CTO, Stress Engineering Services Trevor MacMaster, CCO, Oli Michiel Van Haersma Buma, CCO, Whitespace Solutions Ove Heitmann Hansen, Senior Principal, Transformational Trust, Digital, DNV Joe McDonald, CEO, Hazid Technologies Eric Johnsen, Director, Business Development, Niantic Spatial Marty Dytrych, Director, Bolo AI Holly Frankenfield, Chief Transformation Officer, Energy Point Consulting Abhishek Balakrishnan, CTO, DNV Andy Rafal, CEO, Oli

#FDTUSA2026 #futuredigitaltwin

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Thank You to Our Sponsors Official Digital Twin Partner

Gold Sponsor

SIlver Sponsor

13

Thank You to Our Sponsors Innovation Partner

Bronze Sponsor

Exhibitors

14

15

Our Attending Companies 1852 Solutions

Energy Point Consulting

M

Enterprise Products A

SAND TECHNOLOGIES SAP Enterprise Resource

EOG Resources

Marathon Oil

Planning

EPSLLA

Marathon Petroleum Company

SBM Offshore

AIS

Esri

MetaPassageways

Schlumberger

Aize

Expand Energy

Mhaneto Development Group

SGT-DETECT

Albemarle

ExxonMobil

Microsoft

Shape Digital

Motiva Enterprises

Shell

Moyno

Siemens Energy

Multiplied AI

Silver Wolf Midstream

AltaML Ansys part of Synopsys

F

Apache Corp Aramco

Falkor

Murphy Oil Coorporation

SIMACRO

AVEVA

FERTIGLOBE-AE

MySep

SIS Holdings Group

Fluor B

SLB

FocisAI

N

FutureOn

SPF Reservoir Characterization

B4E Baker Hughes

Solid AIMS

G

Bechtel Energy

Narveetech

Consulting

National Oilwell Varco

Spurcroft

NES Global

Starkville Tech

Bentley AI

GeoSpectral Consulting

Niantic Spatial

SteelTrace

Beusa

GIS

Noble Corporation

Stream Flo

Nuglobal

Stress Engineering Services

Nuro

Subsea 7

BI Energy Tech Birlasoft

H

Bizmetric

NXTFrontier

Blockchain For Energy

Halliburton

Bolo AI

Hazid Technologies

bp

Healthcare

Brunel Energy

Hess Corporation

Occidental Petroleum

TC Energy

Hilcorp Energy

Oceaneering

Technip Energies

Hitachi Energy

OLI Systems

Texas A&M University

Honeywell

Ooga Technologies .

Tex-Isle .

Houston AI Institute

OPX Ai

TGT Diagnostics

Oxy

Third Coast Midstream

C Cameron LNG

T O T4 athletics

Celanese CENTENE

I

Total Energies

Cheniere Energy

P

Chevron

IBM Energy and Natural

Chevron Phillips Chemical

Resources

P66

U

Company

Imperative Chemical Partners

PADT

UH-itf

Chiyoda International

Ineos Energy

Pattern Energy

University of Houston

Corporation

Innovations24

Pemex Deer Park Refinery

Chord Energy

Inovate

PertroSantander .

Cigna

Insitely

Phillips 66

CleanHarbors

Inzopay

Plains All American

Vallourec

CMG

IQVIA

Pontem Analytics

VEERUM

Precision Drilling

Verdun Oil Company

ProLytX

VisCo

Promethean Energy

Visual Intelligence

ConocoPhillips Corva

K

Covestro Karachaganak Petroleum D

V

Prosera

Operating

W

Kators

R

Davenport Energy

Keane Group

DeepOcean

KeyLogic

Radix Engineering and Software

Well Robotic WellQuest AI

Dell Technologies

KLX Energy Services

ReVisionz

WhiteSpace Solutions

DNV

Kosmos Energy

Rice University

Wood Group

Dow Chemicals

Kyndryl

Rubicon Technology Partners

Worley

E

L

S

Z

Elite Energy Partners

LivEdge

S&J Advisors .

Zachry

Enbridge

LyondellBasell

SABIC

Energy

SAIPEM

#FDTUSA2026 #futuredigitaltwin

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O F F IC IA L D I GI TA L TWI N PA RTN E R