Last week at Utility Week Live 2026 (UWL), one thing stood out above everything else: the sector is moving from talking about technology transformation to genuinely grappling with how to deliver it at scale.
A few reflections that stayed with Ben Lever, our Director of Water & Energy:
1. Customer experience is becoming both more human and more data-driven
There was a strong focus on the win-win of improving customer outcomes while also reducing cost to serve. The conversations have clearly evolved beyond digital for digital’s sake. It’s now about reaching customers through the right channel, at the right time, with the right intervention.
What was particularly encouraging was the emphasis on supporting vulnerable customers more proactively. Utilities are increasingly combining datasets, behavioural insights, AI and user-centred design to better understand customer context, predict risk earlier, and tailor support more effectively.
The challenge? Data sharing and accessibility across organisations and sectors remain major barriers. If we’re serious about proactive support, we need to think much more collectively about how data can enable better outcomes.
Really interesting perspectives from teams at Utilita, United Utilities, Welsh Water and E.ON on this topic — and one that strongly resonated with some of the themes I explored in a recent article on proactively serving vulnerable customers.
2. AI governance is now becoming the critical unlock for scale
The industry feels caught in an important transition phase: moving from experimentation into operational adoption.
Particularly in water, there’s still uncertainty around what “good governance” for AI actually looks like — both internally and from a regulatory perspective. Many organisations already have strong use cases, but scaling them is being held back by a combination of fragmented datasets, limited capability at scale, unclear risk appetite, and business cases where benefits are longer-term than investment cycles typically favour.
A recurring theme was that industry and regulators need to shape this together: identifying where clearer guardrails would accelerate confidence and adoption, but also where regulation may need to step back to allow innovation to happen.
Great discussions from Anglian Water, NESO, Ofgem and OVO on this.
3. Low-carbon technology adoption remains a behavioural challenge as much as a technical one
The old saying that “the future is already here — it’s just not evenly distributed” has probably never felt more relevant.
The technology exists. Costs continue to fall. But mass adoption still depends on whether solutions genuinely fit into people’s lives.
What I found most interesting was the shift in thinking from selling individual technologies towards delivering outcomes — warmer homes, lower bills, less friction, simpler living. Whether through integrated whole-smart home services or 3rd party energy management propositions, utilities are increasingly recognising that customer behaviour, trust and perception matter just as much as technical feasibility.
And of course, all of this still sits alongside the bigger system questions: flexibility markets, infrastructure upgrades, and the economics of future energy systems.
Overall, UWL reinforced something we see every day at Transform: the sector has no shortage of ideas or ambition. The challenge now is connecting strategy, technology, regulation and customer reality in a way that unlocks the potential at scale.