[image-caption title="At%20North%20Carolina%E2%80%99s%20Cooperative%20Technologies%20Conference%20%26%20Expo%2C%20Dairyland%20Power's%20Vlad%20Tsoy%20(left)%20and%20Tom%20Paulson%20(right)%20discuss%20updates%20to%20the%20G%26T-built%20AI%20platform%20VoltWrite%20that%20is%20now%20available%20to%20all%20co-ops%20nationwide.%20(Photo%20By%3A%20Josh%20Conner%2FNorth%20Carolina%E2%80%99s%20Electric%20Cooperatives)%E2%80%AF%20" description="%20" image="%2Fnews%2FPublishingImages%2Fdairylandai.jpg" /]
WILMINGTON, N.C.—“May your outages be few and bandwidth plentiful.”
The La Crosse, Wisconsin-based generation and transmission cooperative gave a live demonstration of the AI agent that included having it answer general questions about North Carolina co-ops and then emailing an annotated article to one of its developers, Vlad Tsoy, within two minutes.
Named for the AI sidekick of comic superhero Iron Man, Jarvis can communicate verbally in a normal tone and allow for more nuanced exchanges to obtain precise data or information, said Tsoy, Dairyland’s enterprise solutions architect. The G&T is preparing to launch the AI agent in late 2026.
Tsoy and Tom Paulson, the co-op’s director of IT application services, also told CTCE attendees about the latest use cases of VoltWrite, its secure, generative AI platform. The large language model can create pictures and videos in addition to text information.
Built by a Dairyland team led by Vice President and CIO Nate Melby, VoltWrite launched in February 2024 and was soon available to the G&T’s member co-ops. At NRECA’s TechAdvantage earlier this year, Melby and Tsoy opened VoltWrite as a service to all distribution co-ops nationwide and since then have been getting requests on a weekly basis.
A key feature of VoltWrite is that it is closed and secure, unlike the open, deep learning models on the market. “Your data is not going to the outside world,” said Paulson. “It’s secure to you and your co-op.”
VoltWrite is targeted to co-ops’ middle management, but other departments are finding it handy. “For staff out in the field and not at computers all the time, this tool solves their frustration,” said Tsoy. “They can ask VoltWrite a question in their natural language and retrieve answers very fast.”
Co-ops already are using the AI tool for tasks like scanning thousands of pages from binders on plant operations for a quick reference and summarizing new laws or regulations to determine their impact on operations or employee policies.
“In the co-op space, we all wear three or five hats at a time,” said Tsoy. “We saw this as a game-changer to win back time. It’s not a tool to eliminate jobs but to support employees to do more with less.”
