Generative AI for the energy transition?
What technological levers can today accelerate the multi-energy strategy of a group like TotalEnergies? By joining forces with Mistral AI, the French start-up specializing in open source artificial intelligence models, the energy giant intends to take a step forward in optimizing its industrial, commercial and environmental operations. Beyond digital transformation, this alliance raises the question of the strategic and responsible use of AI in a key sector of the energy transition.
An unprecedented alliance between an energy company and a French deeptech company
Announced on June 3, 2025, the collaboration between TotalEnergies and Mistral AI marks a convergence between two ambitions: that of an energy player committed to carbon neutrality, and that of a European AI champion concerned with technological sovereignty. This partnership aims to integrate the open weight language models developed by Mistral into TotalEnergies’ operational ecosystems.
According to official statements, priority use cases concern :
- Predictive maintenance in production and distribution infrastructures.
- Large-scale analysis of unstructured data (reports, logs, field notes).
- Decision support for industrial site energy optimization.
- Support for support functions (HR, legal, finance) by specialized AI assistants.
Concrete use cases and expected impact
The ambition is to turn Mistral models into technical co-pilots for TotalEnergies employees, through several pilot projects:
- Offshore equipment monitoring: models can continuously analyze thousands of signals to anticipate failures. According to in-house tests, a 20% reduction in unplanned failures is envisaged.
- Optimization of solar and wind power plants: through predictive modeling of weather and consumption data, AI could deliver energy efficiency gains of 8-12%.
- Support for engineers: generative AI assistants can process technical documentation databases and propose recommendations adapted to each industrial context.
- Detecting fraud or contractual anomalies: in procurement contracts or compliance data, Mistral’s LLMs can automate the examination of complex corpora, reducing processing time by 40%.
A strong signal for European digital sovereignty
By choosing Mistral, TotalEnergies is sending out a strategic message: it’s possible for a major corporation to collaborate with European players, rather than relying exclusively on American technologies. This preference for open source, auditable and modular AI is also in line with a logic of security, adaptability and transparency.
At a time when few French companies have massively integrated LLMs into their value chains – only 27% made regular use of them in 2024 according to Capgemini1 – this partnership could serve as a model.
What are the implications for data governance?
Deploying LLMs such as Mistral’s in mission-critical environments places high demands on data governance:
- Secure hosting on sovereign cloud: TotalEnergies plans to deploy on in-house infrastructure or private cloud, in compliance with the RGPD and industry regulations.
- Prompt and output control: protocols are being developed to validate, trace and audit interactions with models.
- Team training: an AI skills enhancement program has been launched for over 1,000 employees, focusing in particular on prompt design, verification of generated responses and ethical issues.
A model of collaboration to follow?
This public-private alliance between a CAC 40 company and a deeptech scale-up could become a replicable model in other sectors. By combining business expertise, technological sovereignty and responsible AI, TotalEnergies and Mistral intend to show that generative AI can enhance not only operational efficiency, but also energy resilience and environmental transparency.
Against a backdrop of accelerated decarbonization and geopolitical instability over energy resources, these initiatives are set to multiply. Artificial intelligence could thus play a key role in designing a more agile, sober and controlled energy future.
References
1. Capgemini. (2024). AI Readiness Report – France.
https://www.capgemini.com/fr-fr/research/ai-readiness-france-2024