MAIRE, Fluor and Bechtel Opt for Octave AI

Octave Intelligence, an independent enterprise which provides partners with industry-tailored Software as a Service (SaaS) , will collaborate with MAIRE to integrate its multi-agent AI software into the engineering giant’s operational workflows. 

Octave was launched by industrial technology leader Hexagon in 2026, combining its Asset Lifecycle Intelligence and Safety, Infrastructure & Geospatial divisions into a separate identity. 

Drawing on Hexagon’s 51 years of industrial expertise, the company creates software solutions to enhance performance and mitigate risk across all stages of an asset’s lifecycle.

It launched its Octave CoLabs programme in July 2026, which develops specialised agentic AI to organise, enhance and consult upon firms’ unique workflows. 

American construction titans Fluor and Bechtel are among early initiators of Octave Colabs’ programme. 

Italian energy giant MAIRE follows them, highlighting a keen demand for digital transformation within industrial operations management – and specialised AI-scaling in particular. 

“Every plant MAIRE designs is built for top performance and integrates the best available technologies,” says Michele Mariella, Chief Information Officer at MAIRE. 

“Today, that means being at the frontier of AI adoption, and this partnership with Octave is exactly that commitment in action.”

An extended partnership enters its AI phase

Headquartered in Milan, Italy, MAIRE operates as an engineering and technology group delivering energy transition solutions. 

The company employs around 10,800 people globally and manages simultaneous large-scale capital projects across the energy, chemical, and industrial sectors. 

In May 2026, MAIRE announced roughly US$1.48bn in new project awards spanning Asia, Europe, and the Americas, followed in August by a further US$125m in liquified natural gas (LNG) awards for its subsidiary Tecnimont. 

For major firms like MAIRE, who construct and maintain plants in over 50 countries, harnessing innovative technology to consolidate decades of siloed operational data is a key concern. 

The company has invested US$1.1bn into its digital transformation. Its Octave partnership builds on a 20-year relationship with Hexagon, and will facilitate MAIRE’s plans for an integrated digital ecosystem that drives efficiency and sustainability across all its departments.

• MAIRE has incorporated Octave’s entire software suite, which contains platforms tailored for each phase of a critical project: from design to building to maintenance
• Octave Forte, a data-led information management system, helps firms establish consistent datasets that carry across design-build cycles 
• Octave Onsite connects construction personnel with project management systems, granting engineers instant, mobile access to up-to-date specifications in field
• Octave Loop is a materials management platform, consolidating projects’ supply-chain onboarding, producing materials catalogs and connecting all stakeholders with current data
• The company’s newest programme, Octave CoLabs, works with clients to develop multi-agent AI orchestration systems that integrate project data across full asset lifecycles, deploying it to inform decision-making every stage gate 

“The partnership between MAIRE and Octave focuses on applying AI where it delivers measurable value inside real engineering and construction workflows,” says Octave’s Chief Product Officer Jay Allardyce. 

“By connecting trusted, governed data across the lifecycle, we are enabling teams to make better decisions, improve execution predictability and deliver critical infrastructure with greater confidence.”

How agentic AI is mitigating risk 

For firms managing complex construction projects, introducing AI carries implicit risk. Relying on disconnected AI copilots across departments can jeopardise operations: recommendations may be generated on fragmented data.

Without centralisation to provide the opportunity for human expert oversight, individual copilots may reintroduce bottlenecks that delay project sequences, or make decisions that put safety at risk. 

MAIRE is anchoring its digital transformation around a “Human in the Loop” philosophy. Octave CoLabs’ 11-week program works closely with its partners and allows companies to develop a specialised multi-agent AI system, built to provide personnel with critical, data-enhanced information without removing them from decision-making processes. 

Octave emphasises multiple built-in safeguarding avenues: 

• Establishing strict validation checks for automated design calculations
• Restricting agentic decision-making to engineering data sets overseen by human leadership
• Maintaining complete audit trails for every AI-generated structural recommendation
• Verifying model outputs against established environmental and safety standards
• Ensuring human engineers retain final sign-off authority across all safety-critical workflows

When it comes to return on investment, an orchestrated AI network that pulls together and analyses cross-department data to produce informed insights is a highly efficient option for firms looking to digitally scale their operations.

“We believe the companies that win over the next decade won't be the ones chasing the newest model,” says Dan Brennan, Octave’s Vice President of Customer Innovation, commenting on LinkedIn. “They'll be the ones that reimagine how work can get done, and in doing so unlock a new wave of productivity from their most important assets – their people.”

“We're embedding our teams alongside our customers, not to sell them a solution, but to build one together.”

Key partners for MAIRE and Octave

Fluor 

A US-based, publicly traded engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) firm, Fluor serves the energy, chemicals, infrastructure, and government sectors. One of the world’s largest EPC contractors, Fluor delivers complex capital projects across dozens of countries. Fluor joined Octave CoLabs at launch in July 2026, piloting agentic AI workflows built on its own operational data to improve project delivery outcomes. 

Bechtel

A privately held EPC contractor founded in San Francisco in 1898, Bechtel engineers and constructs global infrastructure megaprojects, with credits including the Hoover Dam and the Channel Tunnel. Bechtel was named an initial participating customer in Octave CoLabs at its July 2026 launch, working alongside Octave's product teams to build AI-driven solutions grounded in real project data. 

Technip

With over 18,000 employees, French energy giant Technip is known for engineering energy transition technologies, LNG plant construction and sustainable chemistry facilities. MAIRE works alongside Technip Energies on major energy transition and green hydrogen initiatives, sharing governed project lifecycle data to ensure environmental compliance and design precision across international plant builds.