After deploying an AI system internally, Worley expands the platform to clients, helping engineers retrieve design decisions and lessons learned across EPC, CM projects
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For engineering firms managing refineries, chemical plants, pipelines and long-lived industrial facilities, some of the most valuable project knowledge exists not in databases but in decades of reports, drawings and the experience of engineers nearing retirement.
With technical documentation spread across multiple, design and information systems and project archives, firms are increasingly exploring artificial intelligence tools to capture that expertise and make it usable across complex industrial asset portfolios.
Worley Consulting says it is deploying such an approach through an artificial intelligence platform designed to organize engineering documentation, operational records and internal expertise across industrial projects. The system was developed internally and is now being offered to clients through a partnership with software firm Bloomfire.
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Worley began deploying the system internally between April and December 2025 through an internal platform called WorleyIQ. The LLM-powered AI now serves roughly 3,000 engineers, consultants and digital specialists across the firm and has reached full adoption among its target users, according to the company. Engineers primarily use the platform for AI-enabled search across engineering documentation, discovery of subject-matter experts across global teams and curation of validated technical content reused on new projects.
The platform is accessible through a web or mobile portal as well as collaboration tools like Microsoft Teams and Slack, allowing engineers to search technical documentation and project records directly within their existing workflows.
In the first two months after full rollout, Worley said users averaged about five searches per person per month as engineers used the platform to locate internal expertise and retrieve project knowledge from across the organization.
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Industry groups say interest in AI-enabled knowledge systems is growing across the engineering sector.
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An October 2025 technology primer issued by the American Council of Engineering Companies says AI tools—from predictive analytics to natural-language search—are helping firms analyze technical documents, automate information retrieval and connect engineers with internal knowledge bases more quickly.
Research on engineering knowledge management identifies similar challenges across asset-intensive industries. Project documentation and technical records are often dispersed across multiple, project-based systems whether those are CAD or BIM files in a cloud platform, or simply construction documents on a hard drive or in physical sheet sets.
They are also housed in departments such as facilities management for clients or in a project library for design firms. Retirement or departures of experienced engineers can lead to the loss of critical institutional expertise, according to a white paper on AI-driven engineering knowledge systems published by tech consultancy Augusta Hitech.
“Industrial companies don’t lack data—they lack trusted, usable knowledge that can be used when making decisions,” said Fabricio Sousa, global president of Worley Consulting. “We are integrating and deploying enterprise intelligence directly into the workflows of our customers to drive value and manage risks through streamlined information management.”
Engineering Use Cases Drive Adoption
The collaboration between Worley and Bloomfire integrates Bloomfire’s Enterprise Intelligence platform into Worley Consulting’s digital advisory services for clients in the energy, chemicals and resources sectors. Bloomfire provides the knowledge platform while Worley configures the system for specific asset portfolios using what the company describes as deployable “digital accelerators”—asset-specific data models and connectors that integrate engineering documentation, operational data and internal expertise into a unified knowledge environment.
Under the partnership model, Worley acts as both integrator and implementation partner, combining the Bloomfire platform with consulting services that include governance frameworks, data management, operational integration and organizational change management designed to embed the system within engineering workflows.
For operators and project teams, the engineering value proposition is tied less to generic search than to continuity across long project cycles.
Engineering, procurement and construction management programs for industrial facilities often span years, with technologies evolving, teams changing and project documentation spreading across multiple repositories during handoffs from design to construction and ultimately operations.
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Worley says the system is intended to organize those records so engineers can begin work with trusted prior knowledge rather than rebuilding context from scratch.
“When customers see knowledge structured around how industrial assets actually operate, their immediate reaction is—‘we need this,’” said Barry Walker, senior vice president of AI and machine learning at Worley Consulting. “Our shared customers will now experience the same benefits as Worley Consulting, from the ability to preserve institutional knowledge to the potential to de-risk operations at scale.”
Walker said one of the most immediate applications is access to lessons learned from previous projects. Engineering teams can use AI search to retrieve prior design insights, maintenance troubleshooting guidance or operational experience as a “trusted start point,” which he said can reduce delays and help engineers respond more quickly to process-plant incidents or operational issues.
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Bloomfire CEO Philip Brittan said the partnership grew out of Worley’s internal deployment of the technology. “They became a customer and built something internally called WorleyIQ using Bloomfire as the infrastructure,” Brittan said in an interview. “Customers saw the tools they were using and started asking, ‘What’s that? We want that too.’”
Brittan said client deployments are customized rather than simply opening the same internal database to outside users.
“They’re a reseller. They implement it for you. They customize,” he said, adding that Worley helps customers connect the right content sources, configure the platform around specific use cases and align it with broader digital transformation initiatives.
“Worley operates around the world through experts in energy, chemicals, resources and emerging technologies, which opens up markets we couldn’t access alone,” said Matt Fryar, chief sales officer at Bloomfire. “Our partnership reflects both our platform’s readiness and the strength of the relationship we’ve already built through Worley’s internal deployment.”
The objective is to convert decades of engineering documentation and operational experience into a searchable technical resource engineers can use during design, troubleshooting and operations—helping preserve expertise that historically disappeared as projects closed and experienced engineers left the workforce.
