Momentum to Maturity: The AI Evolution at Strathcona Resources
This talk chronicles Strathcona Resources' journey from AI aspiration to operational reality, sharing the strategic decisions, early wins, and hard-won lessons from one of Canada's top exploration and production companies.
Rather than spending months building a perfect AI infrastructure before delivering value, the Measurement, Analytics & Operations Technology (MAOT) team made a deliberate choice to pursue a momentum-first approach, engaging directly with business units in Land, Engineering, and Finance to surface real pain points and build an Opportunity Register of over 40 AI use cases.
Early initiatives, including a Microsoft Copilot rollout, AI-augmented reporting via Databricks, and an unstructured-to-structured data extraction tool for industrial asset factsheets, generated the organizational trust and business capital needed to scale. A pivotal case study illustrates how one use case revealed that AI wasn't yet the solution, prompting a more disciplined sanctioning process to evaluate business readiness, ROI, and project viability before committing resources.
The session covers the team's current active projects, including an MSA Negotiation Assistant powered by LangGraph and Databricks agents, and a Compliance Report Cross-reference Tool. Attendees will leave with a practical framework for AI adoption in industrial settings — emphasizing business readiness, iterative delivery, and the balance between quick wins and long-term platform maturity.
Registration closes on Friday, May 15 at 8AM MDT.
Date/Time
Tuesday, May 19, 2026
Registration: 11:45 AM MDT
Start Time: 12:00 PM MDT
End Time: 1:00 PM MDT
Location
Calgary Petroleum Club | 319 5 Ave SW, Calgary, AB, T2P 0L5
*This event will be in-person only, and will not be recorded.
Speaker Bio
Calen Jackson
Data Developer, Strathcona Resources Ltd.
Calen Jackson is a Data Developer at Strathcona Resources Ltd, where he leads AI implementation initiatives and advances data platform maturity using Databricks and AWS. With experience in data engineering and analytics across the energy and real estate sectors, Calen specializes in building end-to-end data pipelines, implementing AI-driven solutions, and developing bespoke data products that drive significant business value. He is an alumnus of University of Calgary where he was a two-sport varsity athlete (soccer and golf). Calen is also a Senior Editor at YYC Data Society for their newsletter The Gradient.
**Please Note
Lunch will be served. Please be sure to include your dietary restrictions during the online registration process so we can do our best to accommodate.
An event reminder will be sent the day before and the morning of the event.
Group Discounts
Group discounts are now available! A discount of 10% will be applied at checkout for groups of 6-9 people, and a discount of 15% will be applied for groups of 10+ people. Please note the discount will only be applied if all tickets are purchased in the same transaction.
If you wish to reserve a table, please email calgarysection@spe.org and specify your company name and the specific event title/date to hold the reservation. Please note that table reservations only apply to groups of 8.
Tiered Pricing
We are rolling out a new tiered pricing structure for all upcoming Calgary Section Technical Luncheons. This updated approach allows us to offer lower prices for SPE Members while ensuring continued value for non-members. The new system includes three pricing tiers, with a limited number of Tier 1 and Tier 2 tickets available to encourage and reward early registration. We hope this creates more flexibility and choice for everyone attending our events. If you have any questions or feedback, please feel free to contact us at calgarysection@spe.org.
Group Discount (10+ People)