Is your team using generative artificial intelligence (AI) to benefit your energy company’s procedures? Large language models (LLM) can speed up drafting documentation, but you should never rely on it solely. You still need the human touch. Here are five questions you need to ask your business before you dive into making the most of AI.
AI, Company Procedures, and You
While AI can help your energy company cut down on your workload, the technology doesn’t completely eliminate the need for oversight. Procedures directly impact worker safety, equipment maintenance, compliance, and overall performance. Mistakes, missing warnings, or misunderstood regulation requirements could lead to injury, equipment malfunction, downtime, failed audits, and fines.
AI can and does make mistakes. At times, it can even hallucinate information, such as nonexistent regulations.
Instead of relying completely on the technology, it should be seen as an assistant rather than a decision-maker in your organization. With a well-planned strategy, team reviews, and version control, your energy company can make the most of AI without increasing overall risk.
5 Questions Every Company Should Ask Before Using AI to Write Procedure
Before you start generating and publishing AI-written procedures, consider the answers to these 5 questions.
1. Is Our Data Accurate?
Before you use AI, you need to review your current documentation for accuracy. The technology is only as good as the data it’s fed. If you give AI incorrect, outdated, or inconsistent information, it’s likely going to return with the same wrong information. In turn, this could mean more work for your team to correct the errors or missed mistakes in the resulting published material that have consequences down the line.
2. Are We Protecting Sensitive Data?
Like any technology resource, generative AI is not immune to cybersecurity breaches. If your LLM is through a third party, you’re essentially giving that third party access to your inputs. Is your team feeding product development plans to AI? Project bids? Trade secrets?
Bad actors within the third party could use that information against you. If the third party is hacked, cybercriminals could also have access to sensitive data.
Your company likely already has a data strategy that highlights what’s sensitive and what’s not. Following that strategy and not giving AI access to classified information helps protect your organization, customers, employees, and bottom line.
3. Will AI Account for the User?
AI doesn’t know who your user is or how to write for them – unless you tell it. Otherwise, you could have procedures that are correct but difficult to understand, written for too high a knowledge level, miss vital warnings, or fail to include technical information valuable for more experienced employees.
It’s likely your AI will need insight into various factors in order to actually write for your user, including work conditions, site risks, required tools, and more, as well as instructions that explicitly state who the procedures are for. Your procedures should be easy for the reader to follow and comprehend, using consistent formatting and plain language.
4. How can your team measure the benefits of using AI for procedures?
You want to use AI if it’s actually providing cost-cutting and time-saving benefits for your company. It’s not just about quickly drafting a document, either. If it’s not producing quality and correct procedures, the technology could actually be detrimental to your business.
Set up measurable performance indicators and goals before using generative AI, keeping an eye on document development time and number of revision reviews. After you publish your new procedures, track how many clarification requests you receive from your readers, any audit findings that relate to your procedures, and how many (or how few) operational mistakes occur.
5. How Will Your Team Verify the AI-Generated Material?
Since AI is designed to be helpful, it can invent replies that sound convincing but are ultimately incorrect. Even if all of your data is up to data, AI could hallucinate procedures, cite nonexistent documentation, or place step-by-step instructions in the wrong order.
Therefore, your organization needs a strategy for reviewing and verifying all of the information, – big and small, in any AI-generated procedures. As regulations, equipment, and operations change over time, you should also develop a plan for generating, reviewing, and updating procedures as needed.
Ultimately, you need to identify who will be held accountable for the generated procedures. Your governance policies should clearly outline where your team can use AI, who is authorized to use it, and what level of review is required before the procedures are published.
Whether you’re designing your procedures from the ground up or reviewing your current documentation, you don’t have to navigate the balance between AI efficiency and human oversight alone. Shea Writing & Training Solutions can help you build the strategy, review process, and governance structure that lets your team use AI with confidence: keeping your procedures accurate, compliant, and written for the people who rely on them every day.
