Today's Edition
A. SREENIVASA REDDY (ABU DHABI)
SLB, the New York-listed global technology company, unveiled a groundbreaking agentic AI technology for the oil and gas sector at ADIPEC 2025, marking what it calls “a paradigm shift in how AI supports the energy industry.”
Tela™, SLB’s newly introduced agentic AI assistant, is designed to transform the upstream sector by combining artificial intelligence, domain science, and automation to deliver faster and smarter decision-making.
“TELA in Latin means fabric — a mesh of intelligence. It is the first agentic AI assistant in the oil and gas industry,” said Rakesh Jaggi, President, Digital and Integration at SLB, in an interview with Aletihad on the sidelines of ADIPEC.
Jaggi said Tela™ goes far beyond automation. “Tela doesn’t just automate tasks — it can understand goals, make decisions, and take action. It’s the convergence of 100 years of domain science and cutting-edge digital technology,” he explained.
The system follows a five-step agentic AI loop — observe, plan, generate, act, and learn — allowing its intelligent agents to proactively interact with their environment, adapt to new data, and continuously improve performance. “Tela learns from previous outcomes and tries to perform better each time,” Jaggi said.
He explained that Tela™ can support a wide range of oilfield operations. “Whether interpreting well logs, predicting drilling issues, or optimising equipment performance, Tela agents can work in collaboration with humans or autonomously to deliver faster, smarter decisions,” he said.
One of the distinctive features, he noted, is its multilingual capability. “You can interact with Tela in a language of your choice — Arabic, Hindi, or Spanish — and it will respond accordingly. Unlike humans, it doesn’t tire, doesn’t need a break. It can work 24/7 behind the scenes and help you with whatever you are working on,” Jaggi said.
The technology is powered by SLB’s Lumi™ data and AI platform, which integrates large language models (LLMs) and domain foundation models (DFMs) to understand technical contexts, generate insights, and adapt workflows in real time.
“Lumi’s agentic framework allows customers to build and manage their own Tela agents, integrate partner-developed solutions, and tailor capabilities to their operational priorities,” Jaggi explained.
“The real promise of agentic AI isn’t just faster workflows — it’s the ability to see the whole system, anticipate what’s next, and act with confidence,” he said.
SLB has recently recognised its digital business into a distinct reporting segment, reflecting its rapid growth. “Digital business has been growing at a faster rate than oil and natural gas spending. The recognition is a natural progression of a maturing business,” Jaggi said.
He added that digital companies tend to be valued higher by investors. “They are valued a lot higher than traditional businesses. By reporting our digital numbers clearly and explaining our trajectory, we expect the market to value us more,” he said.
SLB currently holds a market capitalisation of around $55 billion, maintaining its position as the world’s largest oilfield services company.
SLB has a longstanding presence in the UAE’s oil and gas sector, providing field services to ADNOC and its subsidiaries for several years. The company also holds a 30% stake in Turnwell, a joint venture formed with ADNOC Drilling and Patterson-UTI.
Explaining SLB’s role, Jaggi said: “We provide integrated drilling, simulation, and completion services, as well as project management and digital capabilities to the JV.”
The joint venture has already drilled more than 70 of the assigned wells, he said. “We have improved performance significantly — drilling times have been cut by almost 60–70%. We are helping ADNOC accelerate unconventional oil and gas production,” Jaggi said.
On SLB’s collaboration with AIQ, ADNOC’s AI venture, Jaggi said: “AIQ has contracted us to provide the AI framework and the data on which they can build their system.”
He added that AIQ uses SLB’s proprietary Lumi™ platform to power its ENERGYai initiative, which supports ADNOC’s AI-driven operations. “We co-developed a product called AR360 with AIQ — it’s used for reservoir optimisation, visualisation, and integration — and it’s available to any customer through our Ocean Store,” he said.
SLB also has a significant presence in learning and workforce development. “We have the largest training centre in the UAE, operational for the last 18 years, where we train around 8,000 employees of various organisations every year,” Jaggi said.
He added that SLB plans to integrate its new Tela™ application into the training curriculum for customers’ employees. “We also donate software to universities so that students can learn using real-world tools and become job-ready,” he said.
