In a darkened room in Saudi Aramco’s headquarters, a green avatar appears on a screen. It introduces itself as “Ariva,” and says in a deep voice that it can solve whatever technical problem the company is facing. When an engineer asks how to increase drilling speeds at one of the thousands of oil fields in the kingdom, Ariva spits out an answer without pausing, listing the adjustments technicians need to make, and what the precise results will be.
Talking computers are old-school, of course. But Aramco’s presentation, during a rare two-day visit by Fortune to its base in eastern Saudi Arabia, aimed to reveal how the world’s biggest oil producer is piecing together a new long-term growth strategy. The company is in the midst of a massive roll-out of artificial intelligence—crucial, it believes, in turning this 86-year-old fossil-fuel giant into an AI powerhouse that can outlast the golden age of oil.
