Eric Suesz
“Every drop of water carries data throughout its journey,” says Autodesk Senior Strategy Manager Carolina Venegas Martínez in the opening of our latest report, Spotlight on Data and Digitalization in the Water Industry. That’s a really great way to look at it. But is the water industry effectively capturing and using that data? What do water professionals think about their industry’s ongoing digitalization journey?
Going deeper into the water industry
We wanted to know more about how water professionals use software to convert their data into insights, so we took survey data from Autodesk’s 2024 State of Design & Make report and gathered together members of the Autodesk Water Executive Council (WXC) to delve deeper into the subject. The 11 water industry leaders we spoke to, who hail from 8 engineering consulting firms and 2 water utilities, had lots of differing points of view, which we captured in conversation, but everyone agreed that the future of the water industry depends on data management.
What else do they think?
We heard a lot of interesting thoughts in our listening session and uncovered some convincing trends in the survey results. For example…
- Digital transformation is no longer optional. Without digital maturity, the industry will struggle to attract talent.
- Cost is the top barrier to digital transformation, followed by time to adopt and resistance to change.
- Investment in advanced metering infrastructure, analytics, automation, and leak detection tech is expected to accelerate over the next 5 years.
- An increase in cyberattacks on water systems has highlighted the urgent need for enhanced cybersecurity measures.
- Generative AI and analytical AI are different, but some people toss them into the same basket, which some call ‘AI washing.’
- The majority of business leaders said they will increase their investments in new technology in the next 3 years.
Those are just a few of the topics in the report, which we’ve just published on our website. Grab a copy and give it a read.