AI Takes Flight Over America's Pipelines

Percepto introduced an AI powered inspection platform for oil, gas and electric utility operators on June 22, 2026

2 Sep 2026

Percepto, an Austin-based industrial technology company, has launched an artificial intelligence platform for inspecting oil and gas infrastructure and electric utility networks. The company unveiled the system on June 22 at InnovateEnergy Week in The Woodlands, Texas.

Built around Percepto's Air drones, the platform combines onboard autonomy software with an asset intelligence system called AIM. Together they let operators collect and process inspection data across large sites without depending solely on human inspectors, a role the industry has struggled to fill in recent years.

Energy companies face a familiar problem: infrastructure has grown more complex just as experienced field inspectors have become harder to recruit. Conventional inspection schedules, often seasonal, cannot keep pace with the rate at which pipelines and grids degrade. Percepto's system aims to close that gap by running inspections continuously rather than periodically.

One documented flight, the company said, prevented a potential 30-day outage. It gave no further detail on the incident or the site involved.

Dor Abuhasira, Percepto's chief executive, described the launch as an extension of existing automation efforts rather than a break from them. "The next phase of industrial autonomy is about unlocking more value from the infrastructure energy companies already operate," he said.

Rather than asking utilities and pipeline operators to replace equipment, Percepto is positioning its software as an add-on that extracts more information from assets already installed, a cheaper proposition for an industry under pressure to control costs.

Unplanned outages carry heavy financial and reputational costs for utilities, while regulators increasingly expect proof that ageing networks are being monitored properly. Any technology that narrows the gap between inspection and failure has an obvious audience.

Whether the platform performs at scale remains untested outside controlled demonstrations. Percepto has offered few independent figures on accuracy or deployment costs, and the sector's history includes automation tools that impressed in pilots yet struggled across full networks. The company is betting that operators managing sprawling, ageing infrastructure will pay for continuous oversight rather than seasonal checks, and that its software can flag the right problems before they turn expensive.