SLB (NYSE: SLB) has announced the launch of Tela — a groundbreaking agentic AI assistant designed specifically to revolutionise the upstream energy sector.
Tela leverages advanced agentic artificial intelligence not only to automate routine processes but to transform workflows, enabling better business outcomes and significantly boosting productivity and efficiency.
Embedded across SLB’s suite of applications and platforms, Tela offers users a simple conversational interface, allowing the AI to act as a proactive collaborator that augments the human workforce at scale.
Tela operates via a five-step agentic AI loop: observe, plan, generate, act, and learn.
This mechanism empowers Tela agents to interact autonomously or in collaboration with humans, continually adapting to new data and improving results.
Whether interpreting complex well logs, forecasting drilling challenges, or optimising equipment performance, Tela enhances decision-making speed and precision.
The agentic AI’s ability to understand and adapt in real-time foretells a shift in operational dynamics in upstream energy.
“Technology like Tela marks a paradigm shift in how AI supports the energy industry, from subsurface to operations,” said Rakesh Jaggi, president, Digital and Integration, SLB.
“Today, the industry faces a dual challenge: a leaner workforce and increased technical complexity, and Tela can address both.
“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, amplifying human ingenuity and redefining how work gets done.”
Tela is powered by SLB’s Lumi data and AI platform, which integrates large language models (LLMs) and domain foundation models (DFMs) to deeply understand energy sector-specific contexts.
This foundation enables Tela to generate actionable insights and dynamically adapt workflows based on outcomes observed from the environment.
Lumi’s agentic AI framework also gives customers the flexibility to build and customise their own Tela agents, merge in partner-developed solutions, and fine-tune functionality to match their precise operational priorities.
Jaggi further 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, learning through the process and transforming workflows for better enterprise-level outcomes.
“For oil and gas, that means leading the way in energy innovation, driving smarter decisions, and actively shaping the future of the industry.”
Tela’s wide availability spans SLB’s digital platforms and software applications, with deployment options suitable for both cloud environments and on-premises infrastructure.
This flexibility ensures integration across diverse operational settings, enhancing the digital transformation journey of energy companies globally.
SLB’s launch of Tela exemplifies the company’s commitment to harnessing digital advancements in response to ongoing challenges of workforce reductions and increasing operational complexity in the energy industry.
The fusion of domain expertise accumulated over a century with cutting-edge AI technologies offers a potent toolkit to empower energy professionals, facilitating not only task automation but strategic collaboration with intelligent agents.
As the energy sector navigates an era defined by leaner teams and multifaceted technical demands, solutions like Tela are positioned to be critical enablers of resilience and innovation.
By embedding agentic AI directly into everyday workflows, SLB is setting a new benchmark for operational excellence and business agility in the upstream energy landscape.
In summary, Tela represents a pioneering leap towards autonomous, adaptive, and collaborative AI in energy technology.
It embodies SLB’s vision of digital integration as a vital cornerstone for the future of energy operations and digital sales growth, reinforcing its status as a leader in AI-driven energy solutions.
Tela claims to not only transform how work is done but also actively shape the future innovation trajectory of the upstream energy sector.