Half of companies can use AI to help cut emissions by 16% over 3-5 years: Capgemini

London — Artificial intelligence is set to help almost half of emissions-intensive companies reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 16% by 2023-25, the Capgemini Research Institute said Nov. 17.

The group's research shows that 48% of organizations across the energy and utilities, automotive, industrial and process manufacturing, consumer products and retail industries are using AI to tackle climate change, and these sectors can use the technology to cut emissions by 16% over the next three-to-five years.

"It's well known that technological innovations to cut global emissions must be rolled out on a vast scale," the company said in a statement.

"While many address a specific outcome – like carbon capture or renewable energy sources – few offer advantages that cut across sectors and value chains. Capgemini's report finds that AI has significant potential to fight climate change," it said.

The company's research found that AI-enabled use cases have already helped organizations reduce GHG emissions by 13% and improve power efficiency by 11% over the last two years.

However, scaling deployment of AI has proved difficult, with only 3% having fully scaled thus far, it said.

By 2030, organizations can potentially use AI to fulfil up to 45% of their economic emissions intensity targets as per the Paris Agreement, depending on the scale of adoption across sectors, it said.

Capgemini identified the 10 most impactful AI use cases where progress is already being made. These include energy consumption and optimization platforms, algorithms to automatically identify defects and predict failures without interrupting operations, and tracing leakages at industrial sites.

The group surveyed 800 industry executives and 300 AI and climate change experts as part of the study, and the work included 40 interviews with industry executives and experts, it said.