What You Need To Know About Automation vs. Autonomy, and the Future of Drilling Tech
Authors: Jacobs Trent 
Published: January 2025

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As the oil and gas industry becomes more familiar with advanced drilling technologies, it also runs the risk of becoming too loose with its language.
This word of caution comes from John de Wardt, a recognized leader in drilling systems automation and founder of the consultancy De Wardt and Company, who recently published SPE 217754 with a team of other subject-matter experts from across the industry.
In particular, the group of industry colleagues sought to address the overextension of the term autonomous as opposed to automation in reference to various drilling systems and tools.
Presented at last year’s SPE/IADC International Drilling Conference, their paper introduces a new taxonomy for autonomous drilling systems, offering a guide to distinguish between automation and true autonomy. It also highlights other critical concepts, including multi-agent artificial intelligence (AI) and the importance of a “system of systems” approach.
In this Q&A, de Wardt explores the paper’s goals while offering a candid look at where advanced drilling technologies stand today and where they’re headed next.

JPT:
What motivated the paper’s authors to develop a new taxonomy for autonomous drilling systems, what gaps were you aiming to address?

John de Wardt:
I initiated this by presenting at a Drilling Systems Automation Technical Section (DSATS) monthly meeting about the industry’s use of the word autonomous. I had seen many articles and company publications claiming to describe autonomous systems, but what they were describing were not, in fact, autonomous. I thought the term was being misused.
The presentation received a positive response, which led to the formation of this group and, ultimately, the development of the paper. It was a significant effort to create a methodology for incorporating autonomy into the levels of automation taxonomy we had previously published for drilling systems automation. And as the paper notes, this is an ongoing effort, but it lays the groundwork for understanding how to assess whether a system in drilling automation is truly autonomous.

JPT:
What led to the problem in the first place, and what, in your view, is the true definition of an autonomous system?

John de Wardt:
People were describing closed loop automation systems that couldn’t really stand on their own—they require a lot of human interference. And while the industry is doing a good job of moving up the scale of automation, some described their technology as autonomous, which in the simplest form means it can act on its own without human intervention.
As we developed the paper, we realized that there will always be some human agent involved in drilling. So, the human is not going to disappear completely; the human is going to be interacting with the autonomous system.
I think we have now seen people pull back on the use of the term autonomous and I think they are being much more honest in describing their systems. And don’t get me wrong, we are seeing some development of autonomous systems. This is not pushback that we can’t do it; this is pushback against misusing the word for marketing purposes.