That was a key topic at Honeywell’s Future of Energy Summit in Washington, D.C., that I attended last week. Suresh Venkatarayalu, SVP and chief technology officer at Honeywell explained that the labor shortages in the industrial sector will be massive as skilled workers retire in the coming years. At the same time, there will soon be a high demand for manufacturing jobs to be filled in the United States, he said. 

Venkatarayalu pointed to the findings from Honeywell’s latest survey of 300 U.S. decision-makers in energy and energy-adjacent industries. Eighty-five percent are already actively using or piloting AI in their companies. The top three areas where respondents think AI will prove most valuable are cybersecurity and threat detection, predictive maintenance, and operational efficiency. “It actually really fits the bill in terms of how the industry is pivoting,” he said. 

Regarding AI, “2024 to 2025 was a period of piloting,” Venkatarayalu said. “I strongly believe between 2025 and 2026 is the period when we’ll be starting to see massive, big initiatives transforming the industry.” Honeywell (No. 114 on the Fortune 500) operates in automation, aviation, and energy, all supported by advanced digital technologies.

I think of Exxon Mobil as an example of a major energy company that is investing in AI and automation. During the Q1 earnings call on Friday, SVP and CFO Kathy Mikells said the company is “trying to use technology to basically drive our efficiency, reduce our overhead costs by doing things in a more automated fashion; it’s still an area where we have a significant opportunity.” For example, Exxon Mobil recently implemented an accounting software platform, she said. “It’s literally enabled us to save tens of thousands of hours of what was very manually intensive work because we can now automate it.”

Honeywell’s survey also found that more than half of respondents (53%) are using AI to address labor shortages and are conducting workforce upskilling through virtual assistants. Energy companies, in particular, will need to be equipped with the right human talent and AI technology to meet the power demand for AI data centers.

At Honeywell, Venkatarayalu and his team have taken data from the last three to four decades from its installed base—which includes the company’s domain knowledge, along with data and insights from its systems—and used it to train a foundational model that is now starting to guide a new generation of workers, he explained.

CFOs are increasingly concerned about their ability to leverage AI effectively due to a shortage of skilled professionals, making upskilling current team members essential.

Sheryl Estrada
sheryl.estrada@fortune.com

An upcoming event: The Fortune COO Summit is gathering for the second time on June 9–10 at the Four Seasons Resort in Scottsdale, Ariz. Join operations leaders and CEOs from organizations including Xerox, Chipotle, Google, DeepMind, Microsoft, Hasbro, TIAA, RBC, Brooks Running, McDonald’s, Ancestry, and the Las Vegas Raiders. Among the topics to be discussed are the COO-to-CEO transition, how to energize your workforce, what’s next in AI, and how to combat supply chain uncertainty. You can find out more information and apply here.  

Leaderboard

Erik Hoag was appointed CFO of Travel + Leisure Co. (NYSE: TNL), a leisure travel company. Hoag is replacing outgoing CFO Mike Hug, who is retiring after 26 years. Before joining Travel + Leisure Co., Hoag served as CFO and Chief Integration Officer of FIS, a global provider of technology solutions. He was with the company for almost 20 years. He has also held leadership positions in finance at Bank of America, Truist, and HSBC.

Arvind Palaniappan was appointed interim CFO of SS Innovations International, Inc. (Nasdaq: SSII), a developer of innovative surgical robotic technologies, effective May 1. SS Innovations has begun the search process for a permanent CFO. Anup Sethi, SS Innovations’ departing CFO, will remain available to advise the company until his successor is selected. Palaniappan has over 30 years of experience in accounting and financial management, risk and controls consulting, assurance and compliance, and global business outsourcing process delivery.

Big Deal

Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett, age 94, said during the conglomerate’s annual shareholder meeting on Saturday, that his successor, Greg Abel, should take over the top spot by the end of the year. Buffett became CEO in 1970 after his investment partnership acquired Berkshire, then a textile business, in 1965.

“The time has arrived where Greg should become the chief executive officer of the company at year-end, and I want to spring that on the directors, effectively, and give that as my recommendation,” Buffett said during the end of the question-and-answer session at the meeting, Fortune reported.

He explained that after he makes his proposal to the board, the directors will meet again in a few months and take action. “I think they’ll be unanimously in favor of it, and that would mean that at year-end Greg would be the chief executive officer of Berkshire and I would still hang around and could conceivably be useful in a few cases.”

Berkshire Hathaway (No. 5 on the Fortune 500) reported its Q1 2025 earnings on Saturday. Profit numbers were impacted by insurance losses from wildfires and foreign currency changes. Operating profit fell 14% to $9.64 billion, from $11.22 billion at the same time last year. Net earnings were $4.6 billion, down from $12.7 billion, due to a $5 billion investment loss compared to a $1.5 billion gain a year earlier. However, revenue was $89.7 billion, down just 0.2%.

Going deeper

"Navigating M&A as a corporate real estate leader" is a new report by JLL. The research explores M&A in the financial services sector and highlights strategies for aligning property decisions with evolving business models to aim for post-merger success. Without a well-defined transition strategy, firms risk inefficiencies, cultural disconnects, and increased operational costs, according to the report.

Overheard

"Leaders should focus not just on implementing AI but on embedding it into the core of their organizations—ensuring that AI enhances human creativity, boosts productivity, and drives meaningful innovation."

—Cameron Adams, the cofounder and chief product officer at Canva, writes in a Fortune opinion piece, titled "Winning AI adoption strategies from 4 leading companies."