Brad Keywell

Category: Technology

  • Why Utility Procurement Must Be Treated as Infrastructure

    Why Utility Procurement Must Be Treated as Infrastructure

    Utility execution depends on procurement decisions that determine supplier readiness, risk acceptance, approvals, and accountability. This article explains why procurement should be treated as infrastructure and how reusable supplier information, independent utility judgment, and governed workflows create a stronger foundation for capital programs and operations.

  • AEP Bill Analyzer: A Better Answer to High-bill Questions

    High-bill questions test a utility’s ability to connect billing, usage, weather, meter, and rate context into one accountable customer interaction. This article explains how AEP and Gigawatt built Bill Analyzer around real service workflows, reduced resolution time, preserved CIS authority, and established a practical model for governed AI in utility customer operations.

  • AI Is Not a Feature, It Is Infrastructure

    AI Is Not a Feature, It Is Infrastructure

    AI should not sit around the edges of utility modernization. For regulated utilities, it must operate as infrastructure, connecting governed data, workflow execution, controls, auditability, and measurable outcomes. This essay explains why AI needs operating architecture before it can scale responsibly across utility systems, teams, and enterprise decisions at scale.

  • 3 Challenges Data Science and Shale Production Share

    3 Challenges Data Science and Shale Production Share

    Like shale production, data science is challenged by extracting, refining, and controlling the input that makes it productive. If data is the new oil, it’s a lot more like shale than fresh crude.

  • Bad Data Leaves Money on the AI-Enabled Factory Floor

    Bad Data Leaves Money on the AI-Enabled Factory Floor

    Opportunity & Unrealized Potential. Manufacturing industries are failing to capitalize on the tremendous potential of artificial intelligence and machine learning. While some may blame the limits of technology, a dearth of data science talent, or the resistance of workers rooted in inertia, the root cause of the friction is a lack of data integrity.

  • What I’ve learned about scaling a Platform company

    What I’ve learned about scaling a Platform company

    This month, Uptake signed the 20th partner in our Platform ecosystem. These collaborators range from companies that maintain some of our country’s largest manufacturing plants to providers of edge devices for our leading utilities.

  • The next generation of U.S. global leadership in innovation will require closer collaboration between Technology and Defense

    The next generation of U.S. global leadership in innovation will require closer collaboration between Technology and Defense

    Driving on the freeway in the Bay Area today, you might find yourself surrounded by autonomous cars and trucks. Many people associate driverless vehicles with big tech from the West Coast — Uber, Google, and Amazon, to name a few.

  • Technology is Solving the Wrong Problems

    Technology is Solving the Wrong Problems

    FaceTime with 32 friends, updates to Siri and a walkie-talkie on your Apple Watch are just a few of the feature update announcements coming out of Apple’s World Wide Developers Conference this week.

  • AI For Good…Maybe a Little Hope?

    AI For Good…Maybe a Little Hope?

    As someone who lives on the front lines of AI at Uptake, I hear those terms and I react with optimism. Here’s why. Artificial intelligence (“AI”) and Machine learning (“ML”) are being used to do good. You might not read about it in the headlines, but it’s happening.

  • Tech must address problems of consequence, not just convenience

    Tech must address problems of consequence, not just convenience

    Americans are falling out of love with the tech industry. We shouldn’t be surprised. Positive news coverage of the tech sector declined from 60 percent to 16 percent between 1986 and 2013, according to a study last year by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation.