Shell Aims to Enroll Thousands in Online Artificial-Intelligence Training

Shell has a broader strategy to embed AI across its operations, a move that has helped the oil giant lower costs and avoid downtime. Other oil-and-gas companies that have tapped AI to improve operations and reduce costs include Exxon Mobil Corp., BP PLC and Chevron Corp. "Artificial intelligence enables us to process the vast quantity of data across our businesses to generate new insights which can keep us ahead of the competition," said Yuri Sebregts, Shell's chief technology officer, in an email. The initiative at Shell expands a 2019 yearlong pilot program with Udacity, based in Mountain View, Calif., that included about 250 Shell data scientists and software engineers. They picked up AI skills such as reinforcement learning, a type of machine learning where algorithms learn the correct way to perform an action based on trial-and-error and observations. Shell employees could use AI expertise, for example, to better predict equipment failures and automatically identify areas within a facility to reduce carbon emissions, said Dan Jeavons, Shell's general manager of data science.