Most of the conversation around AI and work has focused on replacement. Which jobs will disappear? What will be automated? How much can a machine now do that previously needed a person?
In the energy sector, that is not the most useful question.
Technical expertise is not valuable because someone can produce a neat paragraph about it. It is valuable because it has been built through years of delivery, judgement and experience in environments where getting things wrong carries real consequences.
AI does not remove the need for that expertise. But it is changing how buyers find it, how they compare potential suppliers and what they encounter before speaking to anyone.
That creates an opportunity for energy businesses that make their knowledge visible. It also creates a growing problem for those whose strongest expertise still lives mainly in people’s heads, tender documents and conversations behind closed doors.
Buyer research is becoming more conversational
Traditional online research often began with a short search phrase. A buyer might search for a service, add a location and work through the results.
AI-supported search allows that buyer to ask a much more detailed question. They can describe the technical problem, the operating environment and the type of supplier they need. They can then ask follow-up questions, compare approaches and explore unfamiliar options without starting again each time.
Google says its AI search features are particularly useful for nuanced questions and complex comparisons. Its systems may run several related searches across different subtopics before producing a response and linking to supporting websites.
ChatGPT search can also discover and cite information from public websites, provided the relevant content is accessible to its search crawler.
This does not mean every procurement decision is about to be handed over to an AI tool. Relationships, reputation and direct technical conversations will continue to carry significant weight in energy. What is changing is the research that happens before those conversations begin.
AI can only work with what it can find
Imagine a business with thirty years of specialist experience, a strong delivery record and people who can solve problems few competitors properly understand.
Now imagine its website describes that capability as ‘providing innovative solutions to clients worldwide’.
The expertise exists. The useful evidence does not.
An AI search tool cannot reliably connect that company to a specific buyer requirement when the relevant capability has never been explained online. It cannot cite a project that has not been documented or understand a technical advantage hidden behind language that could belong to almost any supplier.
This is where many technically excellent companies are exposed. Their real-world reputation may be strong within an established network, but the online version of the business is thin, vague or out of date.
That matters when the buyer is outside the existing circle. It matters when a company is entering a new geography, approaching a different operator or trying to be considered for work it has not historically been known for.
More AI-written content is not the answer
The obvious reaction is to publish more. AI has made that easier, but volume alone solves very little.
Filling a website with lightly edited articles that repeat information already available elsewhere does not demonstrate specialist capability. If anything, it makes the genuinely useful knowledge harder to distinguish from the noise.
Google’s own guidance is refreshingly unexciting. The same SEO fundamentals still apply to its AI features. Important information should be available in text, pages should be accessible and the content should be useful, reliable and written for people. Google also says there is no special AI markup required to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode.
In other words, businesses do not need an entirely separate AI content strategy. They need a better account of what they know, where they have delivered and why that experience matters to the buyer.
What useful expertise looks like online
For an energy business, making expertise easier to find could mean improving a service page so it answers the questions buyers regularly put to the BD team. It could mean turning a completed project into a proper case study that explains the challenge and the thinking behind the solution.
It might involve helping an engineer share an informed view on a recurring industry problem, or updating a market page so a buyer in a new region can see relevant experience without having to piece it together from several parts of the website.
None of this requires the company to publish commercially sensitive information. Nor does it mean turning every technical specialist into a full-time content creator.
It means identifying the knowledge that genuinely helps a buyer understand the business, then making enough of that knowledge available to support research and build confidence.
Start with the questions buyers actually ask
Businesses wondering where to begin do not need to start with AI. They need to start with their buyers.
- What does a potential client need to understand before they can seriously consider us?
- Which questions do our commercial and technical teams answer repeatedly?
- What capability do existing clients know us for that a new buyer would struggle to discover online?
- Where is the strongest evidence of our experience, and is any of it publicly accessible?
- Does our website explain the work in the language buyers use, or mainly in our own internal terminology?
The answers usually reveal that the content opportunity is not sitting in a blank marketing calendar. It is already inside the business. It may be in a project review, a technical presentation, a client question or a conversation that happens every week between sales and engineering.
The businesses that explain their expertise will be easier to find
AI is changing the route buyers take through online information. It is not changing the need for proof, clarity or human judgement.
Energy buyers will still want to understand whether a supplier can deliver. They will still look for relevant experience and evidence that reduces risk. The difference is that more of the early research may now be shaped by tools that assemble answers from information published across the web.
Businesses that have made their expertise clear have a better chance of being part of those answers. Those that rely on the market already knowing what they do may become harder to discover outside the relationships they have already built.
AI will not replace expertise. But it will make the gap between expertise that is visible and expertise that remains hidden much more commercially significant.
How AB Fiftyone can help
AB Fiftyone helps energy and industrial businesses uncover the expertise already inside the organisation and turn it into useful, credible digital content.
That could involve clarifying website content, building stronger case studies, developing technical thought leadership or improving how the business appears across search and AI-supported discovery.
If your business is far more capable than its online presence currently suggests, let’s talk.
