Latest / Silicon & Shale Podcast / Episode 9: Acquisition Data, Field AI, and the Automation Build List
Transcript
- 0:00SPEAKER_01: Seriously, what are we even talking about?
- 0:02SPEAKER_01: A gas shortage?
- 0:04SPEAKER_01: By 2028?
- 0:06SPEAKER_01: You gotta be kidding me.
- 0:07SPEAKER_00: Pac, I'll tell you what, I heard that same song and danced back in 08, then again in 14.
- 0:11SPEAKER_00: Every time there's a whisper of a cold snap or a new pipeline gets held up in court,
- 0:15SPEAKER_00: suddenly the sky is falling,
- 0:17SPEAKER_00: and every single time we find more gas,
- 0:19SPEAKER_00: or we get better at moving it,
- 0:20SPEAKER_00: or somebody drills a well nobody thought would produce.
- 0:23SPEAKER_01: Look, have they met the Permian?
- 0:24SPEAKER_01: Or the Marcellus?
- 0:26SPEAKER_01: We are swimming in natural gas.
- 0:27SPEAKER_01: Moving it is a separate problem, but the resource is there.
- 0:30SPEAKER_01: This feels like a data problem wearing an energy questions hat.
- 0:33SPEAKER_00: A data problem wearing a very expensive energy questions hat, yeah.
- 0:36SPEAKER_00: Because every time someone spooks the market with a headline like that, it ripples.
- 0:40SPEAKER_00: Investors get nervous, producers pull back, prices jump for a minute.
- 0:43SPEAKER_00: Then it all settles down when reality actually happens.
- 0:47SPEAKER_01: Right?
- 0:47SPEAKER_01: It's almost like they forget the sheer ingenuity of this industry.
- 0:50SPEAKER_01: Like, you give a good engineer a problem,
- 0:52SPEAKER_01: and they're going to figure out how to get that gas from point A to point B.
- 0:55SPEAKER_01: Even if it means building a pipeline with a spork.
- 0:58SPEAKER_00: A spork and about 10 miles of duct tape, yeah, that's the spirit.
- 1:01SPEAKER_01: Silicon and shale.
- 1:02SPEAKER_01: We should probably explain why Derek is arguing with a forecast before breakfast.
- 1:05SPEAKER_00: That's right.
- 1:07SPEAKER_00: And we're diving straight into it because these forecasts, they keep coming.
- 1:10SPEAKER_01: And they keep getting it wrong.
- 1:11SPEAKER_01: We've got so much interesting stuff happening,
- 1:13SPEAKER_01: from massive tech investments in the energy space to, honestly, wild M&A activity.
- 1:18SPEAKER_01: Let's talk about what's actually happening.
- 1:20SPEAKER_00: Yeah, let's talk about it.
- 1:21SPEAKER_00: Because this gas shortage prediction, it doesn't sit right with me.
- 1:25SPEAKER_00: Look at the last few years,
- 1:26SPEAKER_00: we've seen record production out of places like the Haynesville,
- 1:28SPEAKER_00: the Marcellus, even some of the smaller plays are humming along.
- 1:31SPEAKER_00: You think we're suddenly going to run out of places to drill or waste a frack?
- 1:34SPEAKER_00: I don't buy it.
- 1:35SPEAKER_01: No, I don't either.
- 1:36SPEAKER_01: And I think it's illustrative of a broader issue,
- 1:38SPEAKER_01: which is that people are still looking at these things through
- 1:40SPEAKER_01: a very traditional lens.
- 1:42SPEAKER_01: They're not factoring in the actual pace of innovation.
- 1:45SPEAKER_01: They're not factoring in how quickly we can optimize existing wells,
- 1:48SPEAKER_01: or even how much more efficient our drilling techniques have become.
- 1:51SPEAKER_00: You're telling me.
- 1:52SPEAKER_00: I remember when a thousand-foot lateral was a big deal,
- 1:55SPEAKER_00: Now we're talking about laterals that are two miles long,
- 1:57SPEAKER_00: sometimes more,
- 1:59SPEAKER_00: and the amount of gas we're pulling out of those,
- 2:00SPEAKER_00: it's on a different scale entirely.
- 2:03SPEAKER_00: The game has changed, but some of these analysts, they're still playing with an old rulebook.
- 2:06SPEAKER_01: Totally.
- 2:07SPEAKER_01: Drilling is only the first piece.
- 2:09SPEAKER_01: The data carries the advantage, right?
- 2:10SPEAKER_01: Better sweet spot predictions can cut dry holes.
- 2:13SPEAKER_01: Then you optimize flow rates, trim downtime, and deliver supply more efficiently.
- 2:16SPEAKER_01: We still need rocks in the ground, but fiber now has a lot to say about what happens to them.
- 2:20SPEAKER_00: Well, at that point, I get a little bit skeptical.
- 2:24SPEAKER_00: Because even with all your fancy data, you still got to get a rig out there.
- 2:26SPEAKER_00: You still got to get pipe in the ground.
- 2:28SPEAKER_00: And then the rubber meets the road pack.
- 2:30SPEAKER_00: You can predict all you want,
- 2:31SPEAKER_00: but if you don't have the cruise or the sand or the water or the permits,
- 2:34SPEAKER_00: that gas ain't going anywhere.
- 2:35SPEAKER_01: Okay, but what if the data helps you get those permits faster?
- 2:38SPEAKER_01: Or helps you plan sand and water before the schedule forces you to pay a premium?
- 2:42SPEAKER_01: Finding gas is one job.
- 2:43SPEAKER_01: Streamlining the full run from subsurface to sales point is the larger opportunity.
- 2:47SPEAKER_00: Hmm, I'll give you that.
- 2:49SPEAKER_00: We've seen some of that for sure.
- 2:50SPEAKER_00: Better planning, less waste.
- 2:52SPEAKER_00: But it's still a human element to a lot of it.
- 2:54SPEAKER_00: You still got a guy in a dozer.
- 2:55SPEAKER_00: You still got a roustabout checking gauges.
- 2:57SPEAKER_01: For now, yeah.
- 2:58SPEAKER_01: But the trend is clear.
- 2:59SPEAKER_01: Look at the M&A activity happening right now.
- 3:02SPEAKER_01: Magnolia Oil & Gas, they picked up some wildfire energy assets for $650 million cash.
- 3:07SPEAKER_01: Matador Resources did two all-cash acquisitions in 2023.
- 3:11SPEAKER_01: Advanced Energy Partners for $1.6 billion and Encore Permian for $160 million.
- 3:16SPEAKER_01: These aren't random land grabs, Derek.
- 3:18SPEAKER_01: These are strategic plays for efficiency, for scale, for consolidating acreage positions.
- 3:22SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, that's a good point.
- 3:24SPEAKER_00: And the cash part is interesting.
- 3:25SPEAKER_00: It means they're confident in their balance sheets,
- 3:27SPEAKER_00: confident in the assets they're buying,
- 3:29SPEAKER_00: not taking on a ton of debt in a higher interest rate environment.
- 3:32SPEAKER_00: Smart.
- 3:32SPEAKER_01: I'll give you that.
- 3:34SPEAKER_01: At that scale, especially with all cash deals, buyers need value and synergies quickly.
- 3:38SPEAKER_01: At that point, the tech earns its keep.
- 3:40SPEAKER_01: How fast can you integrate the new assets and get them onto the production
- 3:43SPEAKER_01: and data systems you already use?
- 3:45SPEAKER_00: Ah, see, now you're talking my language.
- 3:47SPEAKER_00: Because that integration pack, this is the point where the wheels usually fall off.
- 3:50SPEAKER_00: You buy a new package of leases,
- 3:51SPEAKER_00: you get a bunch of their old production data,
- 3:53SPEAKER_00: maybe some handwritten notes,
- 3:54SPEAKER_00: some PDFs that look like they were scanned on a potato,
- 3:57SPEAKER_00: and then you gotta figure out what's what,
- 3:58SPEAKER_00: what's producing, what's not, what's got a good title, what's got a mess.
- 4:02SPEAKER_00: The useful part starts where the real work starts.
- 4:04SPEAKER_01: That work should be automated.
- 4:06SPEAKER_01: If you're spending hundreds of millions,
- 4:07SPEAKER_01: maybe billions, you need to process acquired data immediately.
- 4:11SPEAKER_01: Find the synergies,
- 4:11SPEAKER_01: redundancies,
- 4:12SPEAKER_01: and optimization opportunities before closing,
- 4:15SPEAKER_01: or at least within days instead of months.
- 4:16SPEAKER_00: Months is optimistic sometimes.
- 4:18SPEAKER_00: I've seen it take a year to get all the production curves aligned properly.
- 4:22SPEAKER_00: Different reporting standards, different software, different ways of naming wells.
- 4:25SPEAKER_00: It's a headache.
- 4:26SPEAKER_01: Which is why SLB's investment makes so much sense.
- 4:29SPEAKER_01: Schlumberger, right?
- 4:30SPEAKER_01: They're pouring resources into building out their digital infrastructure.
- 4:33SPEAKER_01: Data centers for high-performance computing and AI applications and energy.
- 4:37SPEAKER_01: They're not selling software anymore.
- 4:39SPEAKER_01: They're building the literal backbone for the next generation of energy operations.
- 4:42SPEAKER_00: SLB, yeah.
- 4:43SPEAKER_00: They've always been ahead of the curve on the tech side.
- 4:45SPEAKER_00: I remember when they first started pushing their seismic processing stuff,
- 4:48SPEAKER_00: everyone thought it was black magic.
- 4:50SPEAKER_00: Now it's standard, but HPC and AI, that's a whole other level.
- 4:53SPEAKER_00: What are they actually doing with it?
- 4:55SPEAKER_01: They're building the foundational layer for operators to run their entire business on.
- 4:59SPEAKER_01: Think about it.
- 5:00SPEAKER_01: Massive subsurface models,
- 5:01SPEAKER_01: real-time wellbore optimization,
- 5:03SPEAKER_01: predictive maintenance for every piece of equipment,
- 5:06SPEAKER_01: Even automating compliance reporting.
- 5:08SPEAKER_01: All of that takes immense computational power and sophisticated AI.
- 5:11SPEAKER_01: They're essentially building the cloud infrastructure for the oil and gas industry.
- 5:14SPEAKER_00: So instead of every operator building their own data center,
- 5:17SPEAKER_00: which is what some of the bigger guys tried to do,
- 5:19SPEAKER_00: SLB is saying, hey, we'll build it, you plug in.
- 5:22SPEAKER_01: Okay, it's a platform play.
- 5:24SPEAKER_01: Smaller and midsize operators can tap the same computing power and AI capability
- 5:28SPEAKER_01: without the huge upfront investment.
- 5:30SPEAKER_01: That puts advanced tools within reach of more than the super majors.
- 5:33SPEAKER_00: That's a good point.
- 5:34SPEAKER_00: Because the mid-majors, the privates, they're the ones always scrambling for an edge.
- 5:38SPEAKER_00: They can't afford a whole data science department.
- 5:40SPEAKER_00: They're running lean.
- 5:41SPEAKER_01: Right.
- 5:42SPEAKER_01: Oil and gas isn't the only use.
- 5:43SPEAKER_01: Dr. Neeraj Gupta at Battelle is working on carbon management and CCS research,
- 5:48SPEAKER_01: including offshore carbon storage with U.S. Department of Energy involvement.
- 5:51SPEAKER_01: That takes complex data-heavy modeling.
- 5:53SPEAKER_00: CCS, yeah.
- 5:55SPEAKER_00: Carbon capture.
- 5:56SPEAKER_00: That's a whole different ballgame.
- 5:57SPEAKER_00: You're trying to figure out how to put something back in the ground safely and permanently.
- 6:01SPEAKER_00: That's a lot of geology, a lot of fluid dynamics.
- 6:04SPEAKER_01: And a lot of data.
- 6:05SPEAKER_01: Those reservoirs need integrity monitoring for decades.
- 6:07SPEAKER_01: AI and high-performance computing become critical because nobody is checking
- 6:10SPEAKER_01: an offshore storage site with a dipstick.
- 6:12SPEAKER_01: You need continuous autonomous monitoring.
- 6:14SPEAKER_00: No, you definitely don't want a guy with a dipstick offshore.
- 6:17SPEAKER_00: I've seen some pretty creative field solutions in my time, but that's a new one.
- 6:20SPEAKER_01: That tracks.
- 6:22SPEAKER_01: Conventional production,
- 6:23SPEAKER_01: acquired assets, and CCS all need serious digital infrastructure and AI.
- 6:27SPEAKER_01: Digital capability has moved from a nice extra to basic operating infrastructure.
- 6:31SPEAKER_00: I guess so.
- 6:32SPEAKER_00: I still think about the guys out there, the drilling foreman, the pumper.
- 6:36SPEAKER_00: They're still the ones making it happen.
- 6:37SPEAKER_00: But I can see how having better tools,
- 6:39SPEAKER_00: better information makes their job easier, or at least makes them more effective.
- 6:43SPEAKER_01: More effective, safer, more efficient.
- 6:46SPEAKER_01: That's the practical payoff.
- 6:47SPEAKER_01: Good tools give people leverage instead of replacing them.
- 6:50SPEAKER_00: Yeah, Baker Hughes definitely keeps a close eye on producer spending.
- 6:53SPEAKER_00: It's their business to know.
- 6:54SPEAKER_00: And it does create a cautious environment.
- 7:13SPEAKER_01: But that also means the companies that are spending,
- 7:15SPEAKER_01: like Magnolia and Matador,
- 7:17SPEAKER_01: are doing it very strategically, looking for assets they can immediately optimize.
- 7:21SPEAKER_01: It reinforces the need for that digital edge.
- 7:23SPEAKER_00: Right.
- 7:24SPEAKER_00: If you're going to spend a dollar, make it a smart dollar.
- 7:26SPEAKER_00: Better data helps separate a useful investment from an expensive science project.
- 7:30SPEAKER_01: True.
- 7:31SPEAKER_01: Speaking of smart money,
- 7:32SPEAKER_01: Navis sponsors some industry podcasts and is pushing laser scanning
- 7:35SPEAKER_01: and digital twin technology.
- 7:37SPEAKER_01: You can create a detailed digital copy of an acquired facility,
- 7:39SPEAKER_01: walk through it virtually,
- 7:41SPEAKER_01: measure it, and plan upgrades without traveling to the site.
- 7:43SPEAKER_00: Now that's pretty wild.
- 7:44SPEAKER_00: A digital twin.
- 7:46SPEAKER_00: So a copy of a refinery, a well pad, or a pipeline?
- 7:49SPEAKER_00: You could see clearly where everything sits and what condition it's in, all from your desk.
- 7:53SPEAKER_01: Right.
- 7:53SPEAKER_01: And not a static copy.
- 7:55SPEAKER_01: Sensors feed pressure, temperature, flow rates, and equipment status into it in real time.
- 7:59SPEAKER_01: You can run simulations, predict failures, and plan maintenance.
- 8:03SPEAKER_01: That could change asset management in a practical way.
- 8:05SPEAKER_00: So if I buy a new gas plant,
- 8:06SPEAKER_00: I don't have to send a crew out there with clipboards and tape measures to map
- 8:09SPEAKER_00: the whole thing?
- 8:10SPEAKER_00: I get their NavVis file and I'm good to go?
- 8:12SPEAKER_01: Pretty much.
- 8:13SPEAKER_01: You can integrate it with your existing systems,
- 8:15SPEAKER_01: identify bottlenecks, plan out your capital projects with incredible accuracy.
- 8:19SPEAKER_01: No more, wait, that pipe's actually two feet longer than the old blueprint said.
- 8:24SPEAKER_01: That kind of stuff costs millions in delays.
- 8:26SPEAKER_00: Millions, yeah, or a whole lot of headaches.
- 8:28SPEAKER_00: I remember one time we bought a small field and the schematics,
- 8:31SPEAKER_00: they were just wrong, completely wrong.
- 8:34SPEAKER_00: We ended up having to reroute a flowline because
- 8:35SPEAKER_00: the original drawing showed it going through solid rock where it was actually dirt.
- 8:39SPEAKER_00: Cost us a fortune in three weeks.
- 8:41SPEAKER_00: A digital twin would have saved us that.
- 8:43SPEAKER_00: I'm actually a little impressed by that.
- 8:44SPEAKER_01: See?
- 8:45SPEAKER_01: I knew I'd get you eventually.
- 8:47SPEAKER_01: The goal is catching expensive physical problems before they happen.
- 8:50SPEAKER_01: SLB is building toward that, and companies like NavVis help enable it.
- 8:54SPEAKER_01: Tangible return is the test, not hype.
- 8:56SPEAKER_00: Okay, okay.
- 8:57SPEAKER_00: I'll admit that digital twin thing, that's got some legs.
- 9:00SPEAKER_00: Especially for acquired assets where the original documentation is, shall we say, aspirational.
- 9:04SPEAKER_01: Aspirational.
- 9:05SPEAKER_01: I like that.
- 9:07SPEAKER_01: On the E&P side,
- 9:08SPEAKER_01: consolidation is pushing operators to use better tools on
- 9:10SPEAKER_01: the reserves they already own.
- 9:12SPEAKER_01: The operating goal is simple.
- 9:14SPEAKER_01: Recover more value and waste less time doing it.
- 9:16SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I can see that.
- 9:17SPEAKER_00: The game has always been squeezing value out of every asset.
- 9:20SPEAKER_00: Now there are more tools on the bench.
- 9:22SPEAKER_01: Right.
- 9:22SPEAKER_01: And those tools are getting more powerful by the week.
- 9:25SPEAKER_00: Speaking of powerful tools, you've been talking my ear off about these AI agents building apps.
- 9:29SPEAKER_00: Last week you mentioned it.
- 9:30SPEAKER_00: What's the deal with that?
- 9:31SPEAKER_00: Are we all out of a job now?
- 9:33SPEAKER_01: No, no, definitely not out of a job.
- 9:35SPEAKER_01: But it's wild, Derek.
- 9:36SPEAKER_01: Corey Knowles and Grant Harvey,
- 9:37SPEAKER_01: they did a live walkthrough on how to publish an AI-built iPhone app to
- 9:40SPEAKER_01: the Apple App Store.
- 9:42SPEAKER_01: The big takeaway was that building the app with AI is actually getting incredibly easy.
- 9:46SPEAKER_01: The challenge is still getting it approved by Apple.
- 9:48SPEAKER_00: So the AI can make the thing, but it can't deal with the bureaucracy.
- 9:51SPEAKER_00: Sounds about right.
- 9:52SPEAKER_01: The AI can write code, design a user interface, and generate content quickly.
- 9:56SPEAKER_01: Then it hits human review, app store rules, and security checks.
- 10:00SPEAKER_01: People are still crucial there.
- 10:02SPEAKER_01: Remember the barbecue app I pitched for your midnight build list?
- 10:04SPEAKER_01: The one that tracks brisket availability?
- 10:06SPEAKER_00: Oh, the good BBQ joints between here and Midland.
- 10:08SPEAKER_00: I'd still pay good money for that pack.
- 10:10SPEAKER_01: An AI agent could build that app far faster than a traditional project.
- 10:14SPEAKER_01: The breakthrough is its ability to understand the request,
- 10:16SPEAKER_01: break it into parts, and produce a usable application.
- 10:19SPEAKER_00: So if I wanted an app that, say,
- 10:20SPEAKER_00: tracks every single permit application in Pecos County in real time
- 10:23SPEAKER_00: and flags any potential issues, an AI could just whip that up?
- 10:26SPEAKER_01: It could draft it, yeah.
- 10:28SPEAKER_01: The front end, the back end, how it connects to the data sources.
- 10:31SPEAKER_01: The actual data sources and getting access to them,
- 10:33SPEAKER_01: that's still the hard part for a lot of things.
- 10:35SPEAKER_01: But the app itself, it's becoming a commodity.
- 10:38SPEAKER_01: This also ties into what Deep Ubi,
- 10:40SPEAKER_01: Global Director of Technology for Startups at AWS, was talking about.
- 10:44SPEAKER_01: It's the journey from an AI-generated prototype to secure, reliable, production-ready software.
- 10:48SPEAKER_01: That's the gap.
- 10:49SPEAKER_00: Okay, so it can build a sketch, but can it build a skyscraper?
- 10:52SPEAKER_00: That's what I'm hearing.
- 10:53SPEAKER_01: Sure.
- 10:54SPEAKER_01: AWS Startup Advisor is an AI builder assistant that brings AWS architecture
- 10:58SPEAKER_01: and practices into the process.
- 11:00SPEAKER_01: It helps close the gap between a cool prototype and software that works reliably
- 11:03SPEAKER_01: at scale, so teams can ship and maintain what they build.
- 11:06SPEAKER_00: So it's like having an architect who knows all the building codes
- 11:08SPEAKER_00: and structural engineering rules, even if the AI drew the initial floor plan.
- 11:12SPEAKER_01: That comparison holds up.
- 11:14SPEAKER_01: It helps make generated code secure, scalable, and suitable for enterprise use.
- 11:19SPEAKER_01: Producing something is one thing.
- 11:20SPEAKER_01: Producing it correctly is the standard.
- 11:22SPEAKER_00: That's the key, isn't it?
- 11:24SPEAKER_00: Doing it right.
- 11:25SPEAKER_00: Because in our world,
- 11:26SPEAKER_00: doing it wrong can mean a lot of zeros at the end of a very unhappy number.
- 11:29SPEAKER_01: Agreed.
- 11:30SPEAKER_01: And that leads right into this huge debate happening in the AI world.
- 11:34SPEAKER_01: Open weight versus closed AI models.
- 11:36SPEAKER_01: Dario Amode from Anthropic and Jensen Huang from NVIDIA are kind of the figureheads here.
- 11:41SPEAKER_01: There was even a letter,
- 11:42SPEAKER_01: Open weight's an American AI leadership,
- 11:44SPEAKER_01: signed by over 230 companies and researchers,
- 11:47SPEAKER_01: raising concerns about premature restrictions on open AI development.
- 11:51SPEAKER_00: Open weight, closed model.
- 11:53SPEAKER_00: What's the difference, PAC?
- 11:54SPEAKER_00: Is it like open source software versus proprietary?
- 11:57SPEAKER_01: Pretty much.
- 11:58SPEAKER_01: Open weight means the underlying model,
- 11:59SPEAKER_01: the weights that define its intelligence, are publicly accessible.
- 12:03SPEAKER_01: Anyone can download it, inspect it, fine-tune it, use it.
- 12:07SPEAKER_01: Closed models are proprietary.
- 12:09SPEAKER_01: Only the company that built them has access to the inner workings.
- 12:12SPEAKER_00: So, open weight, everyone can tinker with it.
- 12:14SPEAKER_00: Closed, only the guys who built it know how it works.
- 12:17SPEAKER_01: Yep.
- 12:18SPEAKER_01: The argument for open weight is that it fosters innovation, transparency, and democratizes AI.
- 12:23SPEAKER_01: Anyone can build on top of it, audit it for biases or safety issues.
- 12:27SPEAKER_01: The argument for closed models often revolves around safety and control.
- 12:30SPEAKER_01: If it's too powerful, you don't want anyone having the keys.
- 12:33SPEAKER_00: I can see both sides of that.
- 12:35SPEAKER_00: On one hand, you want everyone to be able to build cool stuff.
- 12:37SPEAKER_00: On the other hand,
- 12:38SPEAKER_00: if these things are getting really smart,
- 12:40SPEAKER_00: you don't want some Yahoo to accidentally or on purpose break something important,
- 12:43SPEAKER_00: like, I don't know, the grid.
- 12:45SPEAKER_01: I can see why.
- 12:46SPEAKER_01: OpenAI and Anthropic have even collaborated on some lobbying efforts
- 12:49SPEAKER_01: in Washington around AI regulation.
- 12:51SPEAKER_01: They want to balance innovation and safety and shape the rules before governments act alone.
- 12:55SPEAKER_00: So the guys building the tech are also trying to write the rules.
- 12:57SPEAKER_00: That's interesting.
- 12:59SPEAKER_00: You think they can be objective?
- 13:00SPEAKER_01: Nobody has a clean answer yet, but they're engaging.
- 13:03SPEAKER_01: The race also extends beyond U.S. companies.
- 13:05SPEAKER_01: Moonshot AI from China is expanding its Kimi model globally,
- 13:08SPEAKER_01: so this is a worldwide contest rather than a Silicon Valley debate.
- 13:11SPEAKER_00: Worldwide, huh?
- 13:12SPEAKER_00: So if these models are open,
- 13:13SPEAKER_00: does that mean our competitors overseas can take our tech and run with it?
- 13:17SPEAKER_01: Potentially, yeah.
- 13:18SPEAKER_01: That's part of the concern for some.
- 13:19SPEAKER_01: But the counterargument is that if you don't keep up with open-source development,
- 13:22SPEAKER_01: you'll be left behind anyway.
- 13:24SPEAKER_01: It's a complex dynamic.
- 13:25SPEAKER_01: What's clear is that the pace of development is insane.
- 13:28SPEAKER_00: No kidding, I'm trying to keep up with my email sometimes.
- 13:31SPEAKER_01: Trust me, I get it.
- 13:32SPEAKER_01: Forget the big models for a minute.
- 13:34SPEAKER_01: The practical applications are more interesting.
- 13:36SPEAKER_01: Melissa Tokmak,
- 13:37SPEAKER_01: founder and CEO of Netic,
- 13:39SPEAKER_01: described an autonomous platform that manages services such as home repairs
- 13:42SPEAKER_01: and pet care.
- 13:43SPEAKER_01: If your air conditioner breaks, an agent can find and schedule the repair.
- 13:46SPEAKER_00: So an AI that calls the plumber, now that's useful.
- 13:49SPEAKER_00: I could use one of those.
- 13:50SPEAKER_01: Right?
- 13:51SPEAKER_01: It's taking the idea of AI agents that we talked about last week,
- 13:54SPEAKER_01: moving beyond office workflows,
- 13:55SPEAKER_01: and putting them into the real world, solving real problems.
- 13:59SPEAKER_01: It's like having a hyper-efficient personal assistant
- 14:01SPEAKER_01: for every single mundane task you can imagine.
- 14:03SPEAKER_00: Okay, but what if the AI calls a bad plumber or one who charges too much?
- 14:07SPEAKER_00: Can it negotiate?
- 14:08SPEAKER_01: That's the goal.
- 14:09SPEAKER_01: The agent learns from prior interactions, ratings and pricing.
- 14:12SPEAKER_01: It weighs speed,
- 14:13SPEAKER_01: cost and quality against your preferences,
- 14:15SPEAKER_01: then handles the calls, scheduling and payment.
- 14:18SPEAKER_00: So now we're ranking plumbers instead of prospects.
- 14:20SPEAKER_00: I'm starting to see a pattern.
- 14:21SPEAKER_01: You are.
- 14:22SPEAKER_01: And it's already happening in enterprises.
- 14:24SPEAKER_01: Good Karma brands, they deployed ChatGPT Enterprise to all 650 teammates on Labor Day 2023.
- 14:29SPEAKER_01: Guess what?
- 14:30SPEAKER_01: 65% of the company now uses AI daily,
- 14:33SPEAKER_01: and they're reportedly saving 10 to 15 hours per week per teammate.
- 14:36SPEAKER_00: 15 hours a week?
- 14:37SPEAKER_00: That's almost two full days.
- 14:39SPEAKER_00: What are they doing writing all their emails with it?
- 14:41SPEAKER_01: More than that.
- 14:42SPEAKER_01: It can summarize meetings, draft reports, do market research, and handle repetitive tasks.
- 14:47SPEAKER_01: The win is removing mundane cognitive work so people can spend time on higher value decisions.
- 14:51SPEAKER_01: That's measurable return.
- 14:53SPEAKER_00: Okay, that's actually pretty impressive.
- 14:55SPEAKER_00: I'll admit it.
- 14:55SPEAKER_00: 15 hours a week is not insignificant.
- 14:57SPEAKER_00: That's a lot of time.
- 14:58SPEAKER_01: It also raises governance questions.
- 15:00SPEAKER_01: Dr. Marcus Schmidberger, founder of Junto AI, challenges the need for a single chief AI officer.
- 15:06SPEAKER_01: One executive can't oversee all of it.
- 15:08SPEAKER_01: AI literacy and responsible use have to spread through the organization.
- 15:11SPEAKER_00: So instead of one guy in a fancy office telling everyone how to use AI,
- 15:14SPEAKER_00: it's more like teaching everyone how to fish with a new kind of net.
- 15:17SPEAKER_01: I'll buy that.
- 15:19SPEAKER_01: Darren Ward, a Chief Strategic Innovation Officer, also emphasizes executive ownership.
- 15:23SPEAKER_01: Success starts when leadership commits to integrating AI
- 15:26SPEAKER_01: into core business strategy, not when somebody buys another stack of licenses.
- 15:30SPEAKER_00: That makes sense.
- 15:31SPEAKER_00: If the boss isn't bought in, nobody else is going to take it seriously.
- 15:34SPEAKER_00: It'll be another piece of software gathering dust.
- 15:36SPEAKER_01: Right.
- 15:37SPEAKER_01: And then there's the humanoid robots.
- 15:39SPEAKER_01: Dr. Peter Fankhauser from Anybotics, they do four-legged robots.
- 15:42SPEAKER_01: But Bernd Burnish,
- 15:43SPEAKER_01: CEO of One X Technologies,
- 15:45SPEAKER_01: says their NEO humanoid robot is planned to ship by 2026 as an open platform.
- 15:50SPEAKER_01: Think about that.
- 15:51SPEAKER_01: A general-purpose robot that can do human-like tasks, available as an open platform.
- 15:56SPEAKER_00: A humanoid robot?
- 15:57SPEAKER_00: So like C-3PO, but for the oil field?
- 15:59SPEAKER_00: I don't know, Pac.
- 16:00SPEAKER_00: I've seen some of those videos.
- 16:01SPEAKER_00: They mostly fall over.
- 16:02SPEAKER_01: They're getting much, much better.
- 16:04SPEAKER_01: And the vision isn't for the oil field,
- 16:05SPEAKER_01: though imagine one doing inspections in hazardous environments.
- 16:08SPEAKER_01: It's for manufacturing, logistics, even home assistance.
- 16:12SPEAKER_01: An open platform means developers can build applications for it, like for an iPhone.
- 16:16SPEAKER_00: Okay, so that's a one on the clipboard to fully autonomous scale, right?
- 16:20SPEAKER_00: Maybe a two.
- 16:21SPEAKER_00: Falling over is not fully autonomous.
- 16:23SPEAKER_01: No, no.
- 16:24SPEAKER_01: I'd give the vision of a humanoid robot shipping as an open platform a solid eight.
- 16:28SPEAKER_01: The current reality, maybe a four.
- 16:30SPEAKER_01: But the potential for that kind of general-purpose physical automation...
- 16:34SPEAKER_01: That's huge.
- 16:35SPEAKER_01: It's the physical manifestation of those AI agents we were talking about.
- 16:38SPEAKER_00: Eight, huh?
- 16:39SPEAKER_00: I'm telling you I'll believe it when I see a robot change out a pump jack motor in
- 16:42SPEAKER_00: a blizzard in North Dakota.
- 16:43SPEAKER_00: Then we can talk about an eight.
- 16:45SPEAKER_01: Added to the midnight build list, Derek.
- 16:47SPEAKER_01: Robot pump jack mechanic.
- 16:48SPEAKER_01: You heard it here first.
- 16:50SPEAKER_00: You keep adding to that list pack.
- 16:51SPEAKER_00: I'm one bad PDF scan away from retirement and you're out here building robot mechanics.
- 16:55SPEAKER_01: Hey, you never know when you'll need one.
- 16:58SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'm seeing that.
- 16:58SPEAKER_01: This sounds less like simple automation and more like rebuilding the work.
- 17:01SPEAKER_01: That's a bigger bite than I expected.
- 17:02SPEAKER_01: Way bigger.
- 17:19SPEAKER_00: So let's talk about where silicon meets shale in a very real way.
- 17:23SPEAKER_00: You mentioned all that M&A activity, Magnolia, Matador, all these companies buying up assets.
- 17:28SPEAKER_00: And you mentioned SLB building out this digital infrastructure and NavVis with digital twins.
- 17:33SPEAKER_01: Right.
- 17:34SPEAKER_01: Massive capital changing hands and an increasing capability to manage
- 17:36SPEAKER_01: and optimize those assets digitally.
- 17:38SPEAKER_00: Okay, so here's the problem.
- 17:40SPEAKER_00: When an operator acquires a new set of assets,
- 17:41SPEAKER_00: whether it's a whole field or a few leases, they're not buying wells.
- 17:44SPEAKER_00: They're buying a pile of data.
- 17:46SPEAKER_00: And usually that pile is a mess.
- 17:48SPEAKER_00: It's different formats,
- 17:49SPEAKER_00: different systems,
- 17:50SPEAKER_00: different levels of detail, some of its papers, some of its old digital files.
- 17:54SPEAKER_00: And integrating that data, making it useful, that's a huge bottleneck.
- 17:57SPEAKER_00: It costs a ton of money,
- 17:58SPEAKER_00: takes forever,
- 17:59SPEAKER_00: and often leads to missed opportunities because they can't get a clear picture
- 18:01SPEAKER_00: of what they actually own.
- 18:03SPEAKER_01: Oh, I've seen that mess.
- 18:04SPEAKER_01: Production data is only the beginning.
- 18:05SPEAKER_01: You also have permits,
- 18:06SPEAKER_01: land records, contracts, environmental reports, and everything tying them together.
- 18:10SPEAKER_00: True.
- 18:10SPEAKER_00: Until that's sorted,
- 18:11SPEAKER_00: you can't tell which wells to re-complete, shut in, or evaluate for infill drilling.
- 18:15SPEAKER_00: You're flying blind, or at least looking through a very smudged windshield.
- 18:18SPEAKER_01: So, the vision is, what if we could automate that entire data integration process?
- 18:23SPEAKER_01: From the moment a deal is announced,
- 18:25SPEAKER_01: or even before,
- 18:25SPEAKER_01: using AI to ingest, normalize, and reconcile all that disparate asset data.
- 18:29SPEAKER_00: That's the dream pack.
- 18:30SPEAKER_00: Imagine if you could acquire a new field,
- 18:32SPEAKER_00: and within days,
- 18:33SPEAKER_00: not months,
- 18:34SPEAKER_00: have a fully integrated,
- 18:35SPEAKER_00: cleaned-up dataset that plugs right into your existing operational systems.
- 18:39SPEAKER_00: No more armies of analysts manually transcribing production reports from old spreadsheets.
- 18:43SPEAKER_00: No more landmen digging through scanned images of deeds to confirm ownership.
- 18:47SPEAKER_01: Yes.
- 18:48SPEAKER_01: Okay, so you've got this massive influx of documents, right?
- 18:52SPEAKER_01: Structured data, unstructured text, images, maps.
- 18:56SPEAKER_01: You throw it all into an AI-powered ingestion engine.
- 18:58SPEAKER_01: The AI identifies what each document is,
- 19:01SPEAKER_01: extracts key entities,
- 19:02SPEAKER_01: well names, lease numbers, operators, effective dates, production volumes.
- 19:07SPEAKER_01: It normalizes units,
- 19:08SPEAKER_01: flags discrepancies,
- 19:09SPEAKER_01: and even cross-references data points to build a holistic picture.
- 19:12SPEAKER_00: So the system has to understand the material, not merely read it.
- 19:16SPEAKER_00: It needs to connect a lease with the right well, royalty owner, and production volume.
- 19:20SPEAKER_01: Right.
- 19:20SPEAKER_01: It builds a connected operating picture.
- 19:22SPEAKER_01: A living database where information about the acquired asset is linked.
- 19:26SPEAKER_01: Ask for a wells net revenue interest and the system can pull the lease,
- 19:29SPEAKER_01: division order, and production statement together.
- 19:31SPEAKER_00: That would be a game changer.
- 19:32SPEAKER_00: Seriously.
- 19:33SPEAKER_00: Because right now that's days of work, weeks sometimes, for one asset.
- 19:38SPEAKER_00: Multiply that by hundreds of wells in an acquisition and you're talking about
- 19:41SPEAKER_00: a significant drag on getting that value.
- 19:43SPEAKER_01: And not for the initial integration.
- 19:44SPEAKER_01: Imagine that connected operating picture constantly updating.
- 19:47SPEAKER_01: As new production data comes in,
- 19:49SPEAKER_01: as new permits are filed,
- 19:50SPEAKER_01: as regulatory changes occur,
- 19:51SPEAKER_01: The AI automatically updates the digital twin of that acquired asset.
- 19:55SPEAKER_01: So you always have the most current, accurate picture.
- 19:57SPEAKER_00: So it's like the NavVis digital twin,
- 19:59SPEAKER_00: but for all the paperwork and data behind the physical asset,
- 20:02SPEAKER_00: a digital twin of the data itself.
- 20:04SPEAKER_01: A data twin.
- 20:05SPEAKER_01: I love that.
- 20:06SPEAKER_01: And then, once you have that, you can deploy other AI agents on top of it.
- 20:10SPEAKER_01: Agents that can automatically identify underperforming wells based on historical data.
- 20:14SPEAKER_01: Agents that can flag potential title issues by comparing deed language
- 20:16SPEAKER_01: to current state statutes.
- 20:18SPEAKER_01: Agents that can predict maintenance needs for equipment based on operating parameters.
- 20:22SPEAKER_00: So the system goes beyond cleanup.
- 20:24SPEAKER_00: It helps run the business, spots opportunities and flags risks.
- 20:27SPEAKER_00: That's much more useful than a fancy spreadsheet.
- 20:29SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
- 20:30SPEAKER_01: It frees landmen,
- 20:31SPEAKER_01: engineers and analysts to make decisions,
- 20:33SPEAKER_01: negotiate deals and design completions instead of spending half
- 20:35SPEAKER_01: the week copying data between systems.
- 20:38SPEAKER_00: I've seen guys spend days trying to reconcile production numbers between two different systems.
- 20:42SPEAKER_00: A turbocharger that never sleeps and never makes a typo.
- 20:44SPEAKER_00: And it learns.
- 21:08SPEAKER_01: So, the next acquisition, it's even faster, even more accurate.
- 21:12SPEAKER_01: It's a continuous improvement loop.
- 21:13SPEAKER_00: That's pretty powerful, Pac.
- 21:15SPEAKER_00: I'll give you that.
- 21:16SPEAKER_00: That's a collision zone I could get behind.
- 21:18SPEAKER_00: It solves a real painful problem that I've seen operators struggle with for decades.
- 21:22SPEAKER_01: For M&A integration, that would remove one of the ugliest bottlenecks in the business.
- 21:26SPEAKER_01: And the tech is getting there.
- 21:28SPEAKER_01: We're seeing the pieces now with the latest practical AI systems.
- 21:31SPEAKER_01: This has moved beyond science fiction.
- 21:33SPEAKER_00: So what does all this mean for the folks out in the field,
- 21:35SPEAKER_00: the landmen, the completion engineers, the pumpers?
- 21:37SPEAKER_00: Is this more corporate talk or is it actually changing their day to day?
- 21:40SPEAKER_01: It's actually changing it, Derek.
- 21:42SPEAKER_01: Think about it.
- 21:43SPEAKER_01: If you're a completion engineer and the data on your wells is cleaner,
- 21:46SPEAKER_01: more accurate and integrated in real time, your simulations are better.
- 21:50SPEAKER_01: Your frack designs are more precise.
- 21:51SPEAKER_01: You're not guessing as much.
- 21:53SPEAKER_01: That means fewer missteps, better production.
- 21:55SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I can see that.
- 21:56SPEAKER_00: Less time chasing down bad data, more time actually engineering.
- 21:59SPEAKER_00: That's a good deal.
- 22:00SPEAKER_01: And for the landman,
- 22:01SPEAKER_01: if those title chains and lease agreements are being processed and cross-referenced
- 22:04SPEAKER_01: by AI, they're not spending hours on the basic grunt work.
- 22:07SPEAKER_01: They're focusing on the complex negotiations,
- 22:09SPEAKER_01: the tricky curative issues,
- 22:10SPEAKER_01: the stuff that really requires human judgment and experience.
- 22:13SPEAKER_01: It elevates their role.
- 22:14SPEAKER_00: That's a big one.
- 22:15SPEAKER_00: Because a lot of what a landman does,
- 22:17SPEAKER_00: especially in due diligence for an acquisition,
- 22:19SPEAKER_00: is sifting through mountains of paperwork.
- 22:22SPEAKER_00: If an AI can do the sifting, that frees them up to do the thinking.
- 22:25SPEAKER_00: That's a huge shift.
- 22:26SPEAKER_00: I've burned whole afternoons reconciling inherited lease files
- 22:29SPEAKER_00: where every spreadsheet used a different name for the same well.
- 22:31SPEAKER_00: If AI could clean that up in an hour, I'd spend the saved time on the judgment calls.
- 22:35SPEAKER_00: Or fishing.
- 22:36SPEAKER_00: Depends on the weather.
- 22:37SPEAKER_01: Now you're talking.
- 22:38SPEAKER_01: For pumpers, imagine predictive maintenance on every major piece of equipment.
- 22:42SPEAKER_01: An alert arrives a week before failure and schedules maintenance for Tuesday.
- 22:45SPEAKER_01: Fewer emergency calls, less downtime, and safer operations.
- 22:49SPEAKER_00: Less 2 a.m. calls in a blizzard, you mean.
- 22:51SPEAKER_00: That would be a godsend.
- 22:52SPEAKER_00: Seriously, that's tangible.
- 22:53SPEAKER_01: Right?
- 22:54SPEAKER_01: Better tools can make those jobs more strategic, efficient, and less stressful.
- 22:58SPEAKER_01: The overhyped claim says AI replaces everybody.
- 23:01SPEAKER_01: The practical version helps people do their jobs better.
- 23:04SPEAKER_00: All right, let me make you earn the brisket.
- 23:06SPEAKER_00: We keep saying somebody could build this acquisition app.
- 23:08SPEAKER_00: What would the first useful version actually do on Monday morning?
- 23:11SPEAKER_01: Start with one acquired field, not the whole company.
- 23:14SPEAKER_01: Give the app a read-only copy of the lease files,
- 23:16SPEAKER_01: well list,
- 23:17SPEAKER_01: production exports, division orders, permits, and the buyer's naming conventions.
- 23:21SPEAKER_01: Its first job is matching records that appear to describe the same well,
- 23:24SPEAKER_01: tract, owner, or agreement.
- 23:26SPEAKER_00: Appear to describe?
- 23:27SPEAKER_00: I like that wording.
- 23:29SPEAKER_00: No robot gets to declare that Bill Smith and William J.
- 23:31SPEAKER_00: Smith are the same man because both of them once lived near Odessa.
- 23:34SPEAKER_01: Correct.
- 23:35SPEAKER_01: Every match gets a confidence level and a link back to the source.
- 23:38SPEAKER_01: High-confidence clerical matches can be grouped for review.
- 23:41SPEAKER_01: Conflicts and weak matches go into an exception queue for a landman or analyst.
- 23:45SPEAKER_00: An exception queue sounds much better than my old system.
- 23:47SPEAKER_01: Which was?
- 23:48SPEAKER_00: A yellow legal pad with three columns.
- 23:50SPEAKER_00: Fix today, fix later, and ask somebody who retired in 2019.
- 23:53SPEAKER_01: That third column has remarkable staying power across the industry.
- 23:57SPEAKER_00: So does the spreadsheet named Final, then Final 2.
- 24:00SPEAKER_00: Then Final 2 used this one.
- 24:01SPEAKER_00: That file usually has a red tab nobody is allowed to open.
- 24:04SPEAKER_01: The pilot should surface that chaos without pretending it knows more than it does.
- 24:08SPEAKER_01: The home screen could show unresolved owner names,
- 24:10SPEAKER_01: well-identifiers that disagree across systems,
- 24:12SPEAKER_01: missing documents,
- 24:13SPEAKER_01: acreage conflicts, and records that lack a reliable effective date.
- 24:16SPEAKER_00: And when I click a conflict?
- 24:18SPEAKER_01: You see both values side by side,
- 24:19SPEAKER_01: the documents each value came from, and the date of every source.
- 24:23SPEAKER_01: The app can suggest a resolution, but a named person approves it.
- 24:26SPEAKER_01: Nothing writes back to the operating system during the pilot.
- 24:29SPEAKER_00: Good.
- 24:29SPEAKER_00: Read only keeps a software demo from becoming a title opinion with a loading spinner.
- 24:33SPEAKER_01: Put that on a coffee mug.
- 24:35SPEAKER_01: The second screen is the operating view.
- 24:37SPEAKER_01: Once records are linked, the team can ask practical questions.
- 24:40SPEAKER_01: Which wells have conflicting interest data?
- 24:42SPEAKER_01: Which leases are tied to production but missing from the current system?
- 24:46SPEAKER_01: Which equipment records disagree with field status?
- 24:49SPEAKER_01: Which files need human review before an economic model uses them?
- 24:52SPEAKER_00: That last one matters.
- 24:53SPEAKER_00: A bad number travels fast once it lands in a pretty dashboard.
- 24:56SPEAKER_01: Faster than a rumor at an investor conference.
- 24:58SPEAKER_01: So every answer needs a visible source trail.
- 25:01SPEAKER_01: If the app cannot show where an answer came from, the answer stays out of the decision report.
- 25:05SPEAKER_00: Now we are talking.
- 25:06SPEAKER_00: What would we measure after 30 days?
- 25:07SPEAKER_01: Time to answer a diligence question,
- 25:09SPEAKER_01: number of unresolved conflicts,
- 25:11SPEAKER_01: hours spent reconciling duplicate records,
- 25:13SPEAKER_01: and how often reviewers accept or reject a suggested match.
- 25:16SPEAKER_01: You also track the age of the exception queue.
- 25:19SPEAKER_01: If it keeps growing, the app has created a new inbox rather than solving a problem.
- 25:22SPEAKER_00: I have enough inboxes.
- 25:24SPEAKER_00: One of them sends me a security alert every time I successfully sign in.
- 25:27SPEAKER_01: The pilot also needs a clean handoff.
- 25:29SPEAKER_01: When a reviewer approves a match,
- 25:30SPEAKER_01: the system records who decided, what evidence they saw, and what changed.
- 25:34SPEAKER_01: If somebody questions it six months later,
- 25:36SPEAKER_01: the team can reconstruct the decision without calling three departments.
- 25:39SPEAKER_00: Or the fellow who retired in 2019.
- 25:41SPEAKER_01: He can finally enjoy retirement.
- 25:43SPEAKER_01: After the pilot proves useful, you expand one dataset at a time.
- 25:46SPEAKER_01: Add maintenance history for equipment,
- 25:48SPEAKER_01: then operating alerts, then the pieces that support field planning.
- 25:51SPEAKER_01: Each expansion gets its own accuracy check and human gate.
- 25:54SPEAKER_00: What about the pumper getting that two-in-the-morning alert?
- 25:56SPEAKER_01: The app should rank alerts by consequence and confidence.
- 25:59SPEAKER_01: A mild trend can wait for the morning report.
- 26:01SPEAKER_01: A serious change can wake somebody up, but it should explain why.
- 26:05SPEAKER_01: Which sensor changed?
- 26:06SPEAKER_01: How long it persisted?
- 26:07SPEAKER_01: And what historical pattern made it unusual?
- 26:09SPEAKER_00: If a machine wakes me up at two, it better bring evidence and coffee.
- 26:13SPEAKER_01: Coffee integration is phase two.
- 26:15SPEAKER_01: The first build is the acquisition data reconciler.
- 26:17SPEAKER_01: Read-only inputs,
- 26:18SPEAKER_01: source-backed matches, an exception queue, human approval, and an audit record.
- 26:22SPEAKER_01: Small enough to test, valuable enough to matter.
- 26:25SPEAKER_00: And honest enough to say, I do not know.
- 26:27SPEAKER_00: That may be the most advanced feature in the whole thing.
- 26:29SPEAKER_01: It is certainly the feature I want in every vendor presentation.
- 26:32SPEAKER_00: Especially the ones where the demo data has 12 perfect wells,
- 26:35SPEAKER_00: no missing documents, and every owner is named John Sample.
- 26:38SPEAKER_01: John Sample has immaculate title and has never changed his mailing address.
- 26:41SPEAKER_00: Put him in the brochure, keep him out of my pilot.
- 26:44SPEAKER_00: So the takeaway is, don't ignore it.
- 26:45SPEAKER_00: Don't think it's for the big guys.
- 26:47SPEAKER_00: Because if you're not looking at how this tech can make your operations smarter,
- 26:50SPEAKER_00: faster, and more efficient, somebody else is.
- 26:52SPEAKER_01: Agreed.
- 26:53SPEAKER_01: Start small,
- 26:54SPEAKER_01: identify your biggest pain points,
- 26:55SPEAKER_01: and then look for ways AI can chip away at those manual, repetitive tasks.
- 26:59SPEAKER_01: This is the point where you'll find the real ROI.
- 27:01SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
- 27:01SPEAKER_00: And if any of this applies to your operation, reach out, siliconandshale at gmail.com.
- 27:06SPEAKER_00: We're talking to operators every week about this stuff.
- 27:08SPEAKER_01: We are.
- 27:09SPEAKER_01: And we love hearing from you.
- 27:11SPEAKER_00: Though if your software demo needs six browser tabs,
- 27:13SPEAKER_00: three passwords,
- 27:13SPEAKER_00: and the presenter's personal hotspot, I'm deducting two points before we start.
- 27:17SPEAKER_01: That's unfair.
- 27:18SPEAKER_01: Sometimes the hotspot is the most reliable part of the product.
- 27:21SPEAKER_00: Last demo I watched,
- 27:22SPEAKER_00: the one-click setup had 14 clicks and a calendar invite with a solutions engineer.
- 27:26SPEAKER_01: 14 is technically a number, and the engineer was very nice.
- 27:29SPEAKER_00: Nice fellow.
- 27:30SPEAKER_00: Great headset.
- 27:31SPEAKER_00: The software spent 20 minutes asking whether I was an administrator.
- 27:34SPEAKER_01: Were you?
- 27:35SPEAKER_00: Pac, I wasn't even the administrator of the conference room thermostat.
- 27:38SPEAKER_01: Alright, that earns a 7 on the clipboard to autonomous scale.
- 27:41SPEAKER_01: The extra point is for surviving the thermostat.
- 27:43SPEAKER_00: So, you think those robots are really going to be shipping by 2026?
- 27:47SPEAKER_00: I'm still skeptical about that one.
- 27:49SPEAKER_00: I've got a buddy who's been trying to get a new part for his Ford for six months.
- 27:52SPEAKER_00: I don't know how they're going to ship a robot.
- 27:54SPEAKER_01: Shipping doesn't mean mass market adoption, Derek.
- 27:56SPEAKER_01: It means the first ones are rolling off the line.
- 27:58SPEAKER_01: We're talking prototypes.
- 28:00SPEAKER_00: Still, I'll believe it when I see it.
- 28:02SPEAKER_00: I've got a meeting with a landowner tomorrow who still uses a flip phone.
- 28:05SPEAKER_00: I don't think he's going to be too impressed by a robot.
- 28:07SPEAKER_01: One last thing.
- 28:08SPEAKER_01: If your company solves a real problem for operators or land teams and wants
- 28:11SPEAKER_01: to sponsor the show, write us at siliconandshale at gmail.com.
- 28:15SPEAKER_01: We test products before we talk about them, so bring something sturdier than a perfect demo.
- 28:19SPEAKER_00: That's actually true.
- 28:20SPEAKER_00: We will.
- 28:21SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna go try to explain what a PDF is to a flip phone user.
- 28:24SPEAKER_00: Wish me luck.
- 28:25SPEAKER_01: Good luck, Derek.