The water industry is on the brink of a transformation unlike anything we’ve seen before. As climate challenges intensify, infrastructure ages, and workforce shortages grow, the need for more efficient and resilient water management has never been greater. AI shouldn’t be seen as just a tool for automation - it has the power to exponentially accelerate the pace of transformation needed in the water sector and redefine how we efficiently manage, distribute, and conserve water.
According to Bluefield Research, AI-driven digital water solutions are projected to grow at an 18.4% annual rate in the US and Canada alone, with a cumulative market of $8.5 billion by 2033. Their research suggests that Europe too is projected to grow similarly at an 18.2% annual rate, with the total digital water market expected to double, reaching $27.2 billion by 2033.
But what benefits will this growing adoption drive for organizations? Autodesk highlights that AI can be leveraged not just for operational improvements but also for design optimization, predictive modeling, and digital twins, allowing organizations to enhance infrastructure performance while significantly lowering environmental impact. According to their research, AI adoption can save 20-30% in operational expenditures by reducing energy costs, thereby enhancing overall efficiency. And they predict AI will have a key role in the future water workforce:
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In the short term, we believe AI will benefit those who are already on the cutting edge the most, helping these perennial early adopters shave off ever-more inefficiencies. But we think AI-driven applications have the potential to make an even bigger long-term difference on the water workforce, particularly for water utilities who have either avoided digitalization for too long or who have simply not had the resources and support needed to train and equip their workforce of engineers with high-tech tools.
Yet, many organizations and utilities find it difficult to tap into these benefits. AI’s true potential will only be realized if organizations truly embrace a mindset and behavioral shift. Too often, digital transformation is seen as a technology implementation rather than a rethinking of workflows, skills, roles and decision-making. At the heart of this lies the ‘people’. Without this mindset shift, even the best AI tools will fail to deliver meaningful impact.
In this installment of the AI for Water series, we explore how a human-centered approach to AI adoption can enhance the water sector through predictive insights, automation and most importantly workforce enablement - while addressing critical ethical and regulatory considerations.
Before we go further, let’s bust a few myths related to AI and the workforce...
Myths vs. reality: Addressing common AI Concerns
Despite AI’s benefits, misconceptions persist. Here are five key myths debunked:
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Myth #1: AI will replace human jobs.
Reality: As job roles in the water sector continue to evolve, there is certainty that some job functions or roles, including highly repetitive tasks, will indeed be replaced by AI. But, this doesn’t mean that the need for a workforce will be replaced. With the right business case and application, it augments human intelligence rather than replacing it. One example is the introduction of an AI agent workforce. This workforce can perform many foundational tasks that are often time consuming but necessary for a water utility, such as processing of billing disputes or outage reports. This allows our valuable human intelligence to focus on the most important tasks, such as resolving disputes quickly, responding to interruptions to supply faster and enhancing customer service.
Arcadis’ AI-driven workforce training ensures employees transition into more skilled roles, such as data analysts and digital system managers. For example, implementation of AI-supported leak detection can result in at least 50% cost improvements, allowing experts to focus on proactive maintenance and asset optimization.
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Myth #2: AI is too expensive for small utilities.
Reality: AI is not just for large enterprises. Cloud-based AI tools can provide cost-effective solutions for utilities of all sizes. Subscription-based AI models reduce the need for heavy upfront investment, allowing smaller utilities to leverage various benefits from predictive analytics and automated monitoring to digital twins. Arcadis’ Enterprise Decision Analytics (EDA) solution, a cloud-based, subscription-driven platform, helps utilities make data-driven asset management decisions and optimize long-term investment planning. In the UK, Severn Trent Water is using EDA to enhance operational efficiency through predictive analytics and real-time insights, leveraging the AI-driven solution to transform asset performance and health management. This has delivered regulatory excellence by balancing cost, risk and performance in asset management. Their shift from reactive to predictive asset planning is in turn improving cost efficiency by 15% and strengthening regulatory confidence, helping them secure £186m in increased investments.
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Myth #3: AI decision-making is vague and untrustworthy.
Reality: A key concern with AI is that its learning and decision-making model is often not seen as transparent. But this is rapidly improving. Explainable AI models provide clear, auditable insights that help utility operators understand how decisions are made. At Arcadis, we integrate AI governance frameworks into our projects - aligned with Europe’s GDPR and AI Rule, the U.S. Water Data Transparency Act, and ISO AI Ethics Standards - ensuring data privacy, regulatory compliance and responsible AI use.
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Myth #4: AI adoption is too complex.
Reality: Because of its relatively recent adoption across the industry, many organizations assume AI is difficult to integrate. However, a phased approach simplifies adoption. Arcadis’ AI adoption model follows three core steps: assessment, pilot implementation and full-scale integration. By rolling out AI with specific benefit cases in targeted areas first - such as leak detection, asset management or predictive maintenance - utilities can gradually integrate AI without overwhelming teams and reducing the change load.
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Myth #5: AI is only useful for large-scale infrastructure projects.
Reality: AI benefits utilities of all sizes, from small municipalities to major metropolitan systems. Applications such as predictive leak detection, demand forecasting and automated customer engagement tools are scalable, improving efficiency regardless of project size.
Two areas where AI can be effectively harnessed for asset and workforce resilience in the water sector
1. Predictive maintenance and asset optimization
Water utilities have historically relied on reactive maintenance, fixing leaks and replacing failing infrastructure after problems arise. AI is changing this dynamic, enabling a predictive approach that reduces maintenance costs and prevents failures.
AI is allowing utilities and moreover, the water workforce to shift from firefighting to forward-thinking management and planning with credible data and insights at their fingertips. Predictive analytics is enabling us to pinpoint vulnerabilities, reduce downtime and ensure water infrastructure is proactively maintained and more resilient to climate risks.
By integrating real-time sensor data and machine learning, utilities can predict failures before they occur, reducing maintenance costs and lowering unplanned outages.
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A key example is Arcadis’ collaboration with the Water Research Foundation (WRF), where AI-driven predictive maintenance has improved asset lifespan, significantly reducing financial and operational burdens.
Beyond efficiency and financial savings, remote AI-powered monitoring systems reduce the need for extensive fieldwork, enhancing safety for workers by minimizing hazardous site visits and ensuring that more time is spent on high-value strategic activities rather than repetitive inspections.
2. Optimizing water quality in real-time
Traditional water quality monitoring is often a labor-intensive process, leading to higher contamination risks. AI-integrated monitoring that uses IoT sensors and real-time analytics can help with early detection of potential contaminants or water quality issues, allowing faster intervention.
Arcadis’ AI-driven monitoring solutions can help cut contamination response time, reducing regulatory violations and ensuring safer drinking water for communities.
Empowering the workforce: AI, skills and the future of work
The transformation of the water sector is not just about technology - it’s about how well we prepare people to work alongside AI. While AI presents many real benefits, adoption in many areas remains slow due to organization’s cultural, ethical and operational hesitations.
AI is only as effective as the people who implement it. Many organizations hesitate to integrate AI because they see it as a disruptive force rather than an enabler. The key to successful adoption is ensuring leadership buy-in, employee training and a cultural shift toward digital trust. Demonstrable use cases where this has worked before are extremely effective. At the end of the day, it’s all about bringing people – both in the organizations and the end users - on the journey to realize the benefits.
At Arcadis, we understand this. Our teams have developed AI adoption roadmaps that help utility companies navigate these changes, integrate workforce training programs and phase AI implementation to minimize disruption. By fostering collaborative AI learning, organizations can accelerate digital adoption and see measurable benefits faster.
At an organizational level, our various programs - whether our Skills Powered Organization (SPO), Arcadis GPT, AI training programs or Citizen Developers – all pay testament to ensuring our employees, clients and our organization are future-ready.
When we talk about AI adoption, it’s a very human process. Successful adoption relies on informed choices – not solely on the quality of technology and code – and the knowledge and readiness of our workforce, today and into the future.
This can only come through a conscious collaboration between our people, our clients and technology. Our ‘Skills Powered Organization’ approach, for example, is supported by an AI driven platform. Through this, we are developing a clear understanding of our collective skills across our organization. We can understand where the skills are, the volume we have – or need – and areas we need to develop. This is about empowering talent, not replacing it.
Arcadis GPT, a generative AI-powered tool, is another example of how we are transforming workflows. It enables our teams to automate complex calculations, generate high-quality reports in minutes and streamline workflows, ensuring that specialists can focus on higher-value problem-solving while AI handles repetitive tasks in a secure Arcadis environment.
You may ask: How can these learnings apply to water utilities, and even the industrial water sector?
Public workers have traditionally struggled to obtain the resources they need to excel at their work. Well-designed ‘low-code’ and ‘no-code’ AI-driven applications can help these workers leapfrog over hurdles that have long held them back, transporting them much further along the timeline of tech adoption, away from a reliance on hunches and personal biases and towards employing true data-driven analysis to make better-informed decisions
With our own application of AI adoption across the organization under our belt, Arcadis is well placed to guide clients on their transformation journey.
Scaling AI at an organizational level: A use case
Arcadis’ team in Brazil has long been at the forefront of AI-driven digital innovation, applying scalable automation across hundreds of projects.
A key example is the deployment of AI-powered environmental reporting, where Arcadis' automated solutions have reduced report preparation time by over 45%, ensuring compliance with regulatory requirements while improving data accuracy.
In Brazil, our team is embedding AI and digital capabilities as part of our daily operations to drive efficiency, resilience and better client outcomes. It isn’t just a business push, but a data-led mindset that is embedded into everything we do. This has also translated into AI-powered and digital solutions that are helping utilities and concessionaries optimize infrastructure planning, automate workflows and improve long-term sustainability through efficiency.
One of the key examples of AI-driven digital transformation comes from a private client in Brazil, who faced significant challenges in managing the maintenance and expansion of their operation systems. To address these issues, Arcadis developed a suite of digital solutions tailored to streamline workflows and enhance decision making.
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Customized dashboards were developed to improve operational visibility and control, providing real-time tracking of activities and project planning. Additionally, our FieldNow(R) application was deployed for field teams, enabling them to log progress in real time, eliminating manual reporting and inefficiencies. To further enhance spatial awareness, a WebGIS application was introduced, allowing the client to monitor progress through interactive maps, ensuring seamless integration between field data and operational planning.
These digital solutions, when applied strategically and in an integrated way, helped the client achieve significant efficiency gains, including more proactive planning and enhanced decision making. This ultimately ensured client confidence, through reduced errors, minimized rework acceleration of project execution timelines.
Our AI-driven solutions in Brazil are setting new benchmarks for operational efficiency. By leveraging digital twins, automated monitoring systems, and AI-enhanced project management tools, we’ve helped clients reduce inefficiencies by up to 45%. These advancements drive better client outcomes and improve sustainability and long-term resilience in water management.
AI stands as a real solution and partner for the workforce of the future
As AI adoption accelerates, so do concerns around ethics, governance, security and transparency. Organizations must recognize these challenges and implement the right safeguards to ensure trust, fairness and accountability in AI-driven decision-making.
With robust governance frameworks, explainable AI systems, and responsible oversight, the benefits of AI far outweigh the risks. AI has the power to transform water utilities by enhancing efficiency, reducing costs, and improving workforce safety, but only when deployed with clear strategic intent and ethical responsibility.
To effectively tap into AI’s potential:
1. Integrate AI into strategic planning, aligning adoption with sustainability and efficiency goals.
2. Prioritize workforce enablement, ensuring employees are upskilled to work with AI-driven solutions.
3. Adopt responsible AI frameworks, maintaining transparency, security and regulatory alignment.
To truly maximize the benefits of AI, organizations must move beyond technology implementation and start managing the skills of their people like strategic assets. The workforce of the future will require not just technical capabilities but also cognitive skills such as analytical thinking, adaptability, and even empathy. Identifying skills gaps and prioritizing upskilling will be critical to successfully integrating AI in water utilities.
Organizations that embrace AI with a clear strategy, investment in people and a commitment to responsible AI adoption will not only unlock its full potential but also position as leaders in workforce transformation.
Arcadis supports organizations through every stage of this journey, from understanding and strategy development to preparation and full-scale AI implementation:
Understanding
Arcadis helps clients define AI use cases, benchmark industry applications, and assess governance needs, ensuring a clear roadmap for AI adoption.
Preparation
We guide organizations in building the right foundation for AI, from data governance and compliance to risk management and pilot testing, ensuring AI is scalable and secure.
Implementation
With expertise in AI model development, deployment, and ongoing optimization, Arcadis ensures AI solutions seamlessly integrate into existing workflows, enhancing performance while maintaining regulatory alignment.
Partner with an Arcadis expert today to navigate this shift with confidence - ensuring that AI is not just a tool, but a catalyst for empowering your workforce, strengthening decision-making and delivering compliant, future-ready solutions that align with your organization's water management vision.
Can AI make waves in your water utility?
By 2030, the water industry will experience rapid growth in AI adoption. Compliance deadlines and cost efficiencies highlight the inevitability of it. Understand the barriers and solutions on how and when to implement AI.
