The water sector's AI moment has arrived

The AI revolution is not just about the largest technology stocks and the latest chatbot. The water and wastewater industry is at an inflection point. Bluefield Research projects the U.S. and Canadian digital water market will surge from $11.5 billion to $23.8 billion by 2033 — a 107% increase, with cumulative spending of $169.5 billion.

AI technologies alone represent a $6.3 billion projected investment by 2030, according to Bluefield. Meanwhile the AWWA Water 2050 initiative has made AI and machine learning a cornerstone recommendation, calling on utilities to deploy predictive analytics and real-time monitoring to create “eternal infrastructure”. And in 2025 WEF and the Water Research Foundation each launched dedicated AI research initiatives — a clear signal that 2026 is the year digital water moves from pilot projects to operational standards.

The drivers are urgent. Aging infrastructure, tightening regulatory standards, a rapidly retiring workforce and the rising cost of reactive maintenance are all pushing utilities toward smarter, data-driven operations.

The results speak for themselves

York Region, winner of an AWWA Innovation Award, used Auto I&I to achieve over 90% confidence in its inflow and infiltration analysis, a 78% reduction in analysis time, and approximately $40,000 in labour cost savings per analysis cycle across all nine of its municipalities.

Where utilities get stuck

A significant gap remains between ambition and execution. Most utilities recognise the value of AI-driven optimization but struggle with deployment complexity, legacy system integration, and the specialized expertise required to operationalize these tools.

This is exactly where infinitii flowworks delivers. Purpose-built for water infrastructure and industrial IoT environments, it integrates real-time sensor data, predictive analytics and AI-driven insight into a single, rapidly deployable platform. With typical deployments of 60 days or less — a fraction of the time taken to implement traditional enterprise technology initiatives — infinitii flowworks enables utilities to move from reactive to predictive operations without a costly, multi-year digital transformation program.

We work alongside major municipal customers including the cities of Los Angeles, Toronto, Hamilton and Vancouver, and are expanding across the U.S. Midwest and South including Miami-Dade County, supported by engineering services partners including AECOM, Core & Main, Kerr Wood Leidal, SCG Flowmetrix and TREKK Design Group.

Set up a demo and see what this looks like on your own data.

First published on the infinitii ai blog. infinitii ai is the company behind infinitii flowworks.