AI for Net Zero: Assessing Readiness for AI (November 2024)

The objective of this booklet is to support companies to understand the prerequisites needed to deploy AI in support of a low cost transition to net zero. AI can accelerate the transition to net zero. In this booklet, we refer to AI as a machine-based system that can, for a given set of human-defined objectives, make predictions, recommendations, or decisions influencing real or virtual environments. AI is becoming increasingly useful as it can help identify subtle patterns in very large amounts of data allowing it to optimise and automate complex systems. However, it also has weaknesses: its outputs can be strongly influenced by poor or biased data; it is not always clear how it arrives at its conclusions; and any answers it offers are only as good as the questions it is asked.