How APS dove head-first into AI [partner content]

How APS dove head-first into AI [partner content]

From Open Circuit by Latitude Media

June 30, 2026 · 21 min

About this episode

The episode discusses how Arizona Public Service is leveraging AI to enhance customer service and operational efficiency.

AI is about far more than chatbots and copilots. For utilities, the bigger opportunity may be in applying purpose-built models to the operational data from smart meters, customer systems, weather, outages, and grid equipment. In this first episode of a four-part series with Bidgely, Stephen Lacey talks with Venkata Nimmala, Director of Digital Transformation and Enterprise Architecture at Arizona Public Service, and Karthik Moorthy, Chief Growth Officer at Bidgely. APS initially partnered with Bidgely to solve a highly practical customer-service problem: helping call-center agents explain why a customer’s bill had increased. By using appliance-level energy disaggregation, the utility moved beyond generic explanations to identify the likely drivers of higher usage. But the project soon raised a bigger question. How could the same intelligence support a wider range of planning and operational solutions across the utility? Venkat and Karthik explain how APS began bringing Bidgely’s models closer to the utility’s own data environment, creating a foundation for broader experimentation and deployment. They discuss data sovereignty, centralized AI governance, the difference between…

People in this episode

Host: Stephen Lacey

Guests: Venkata Nimmala, Karthik Moorthy

Topics covered

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Arizona Public Service, Bidgely

Products: UtilityAI

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