Electric cooperatives’ evolving use of artificial intelligence is the focus of a pre-conference workshop and two breakout sessions at the 2026 NRECA Regional Meetings, which kicked off in Columbus, Ohio, earlier this month and continue through October.

The interactive, hands-on sessions are exploring AI’s promise and potential uses for co-ops, as well as related challenges and risks.

“AI has been evolving for the past few years, and we’re at a stage where there’s quite a bit of activity going on [and] quite a bit of exposure of our members to AI-based tools and conversations,” said Venkat Banunarayanan, vice president of integrated grid for NRECA’s Business and Technology Strategies group.

Co-ops can use AI in a range of ways across operations, communications, human resources and member services. It can help scan complex and lengthy documents, optimize vegetation management plans, and marry grid asset conditions with outage data to prioritize reliability improvement strategies, among other applications.

“With the right guardrails, it has promising opportunities to improve operational efficiencies, to better manage the grid, to help leverage data for improved outcomes and decisions,” NRECA senior consulting principal Henry Cano said.

AI for Grid Planning

This year’s Regional Meetings include a three-and-a-half-hour pre-conference workshop for co-op CEOs and staff on innovative approaches to distribution system planning and capital investment strategies, including through AI use.

The workshops feature presentations by NRECA experts, a co-op speaker and an external expert or vendor from each region, followed by facilitated roundtable discussions.

At the Regions 1&4 Meeting in Columbus, participants asked about the cost of managing data and enabling AI tools and how to integrate them at their co-ops.

“I think the immediate value for the participant interactions was realizing they’re all having the same challenges,” said David Farmer, NRECA distribution grid senior principal, who led the workshop with Banunarayanan and Cano. “It reinforces that they’re not alone.”

Chris Hall, vice president of operations and engineering for Lancaster, Ohio-based South Central Power, spoke at the Regions 1&4 workshop. He focused on the theme of readiness as co-ops maneuver demand growth from data centers and other large loads that require them to look beyond traditional planning processes.

To deal with that growth, South Central Power has created new project management offices, redefined employees’ roles and reviewed procedures for handling data center inquiries.

At the workshop, Hall also learned about using AI to assess the cost and rate impacts of a specific project.

“There’s so much to be learned from listening to your industry peers and collaborating in a setting like this,” he said. “We’re connected. We’re faced with the same challenges.”

Leadership, Board Conversations

One breakout session at the Regions 1&4 Meeting explored leadership conversations around AI. Similar sessions will be held at the other 2026 Regional Meetings.

“AI is not evil,” said Alex Mahadevan, director of the Poynter Institute’s MediaWise digital media literacy project. “I consider it like a karaoke machine. It can be used for great good or great evil.”

Mahadevan, who also spoke about AI on the Regions 1&4 mainstage, asked the breakout session audience a series of questions on AI and had them discuss their answers in small groups. Attendees noted concerns around data security and the difficulty of creating AI policies that don’t quickly become obsolete.

“For your organizations, member data security might be the most important thing,” Mahadevan observed.

He suggested using enterprise versions of AI chatbots to better protect privacy. He also said that co-ops’ AI policies might address where data is stored and what happens in the event of a security breach.

Another session looked at how co-op directors can use generative AI tools.

At the standing-room-only session, participants were asked to prompt ChatGPT to gather information on recruiting board members and to create a thank-you note for a retiring director. They also discussed how co-ops are leveraging generative AI across their organizations.

“We’re not expecting directors to be technology experts on this, but they should at least understand it,” NRECA Program Manager Don Wadewitz said. “It's important for directors to have a working understanding of generative AI so they can support thoughtful conversations about the guardrails, policies, and expectations their cooperative establishes for its use.”

For co-ops considering the technology or working with vendors using AI, NRECA’s sample AI policy may be a good starting point, he added.

Session attendees were surveyed on their interactions with AI. Only 25% said they used it regularly, with 45% dabbling in AI and 30% saying they hadn’t really interacted with it.

But Wadewitz said people left the session ready to take more action on their co-ops’ AI use.

“They came away with a greater understanding of how they can use it to make their life easier but also how they can go back and explore this topic more within their cooperative at their board meetings,” he said.

To better understand how co-ops are putting AI tools to work, NRECA is currently surveying co-ops about their AI use. The association will share insights from the survey across the co-op community and use the findings to help guide future resources.