This week, the Dawn of Autonomy podcast continues “Tech for Mission Success” month, sponsored by Teal, with Matt Sattler, CEO and Co-founder of Detect.
Based in Miami, Detect is developing AI-powered infrastructure intelligence tools that help utilities identify defects across the electrical grid before they lead to costly failures, outages, or safety incidents. By turning drone, ground, and field imagery into actionable insights, the company helps utility teams detect and prioritize issues—such as corrosion, structural fatigue, vegetation encroachment, and storm damage—at scale.
Before founding Detect, Matt spent more than a decade building and scaling a data and AI business for HSBC across five countries. In 2021, he joined his mentor at Pilot Wave Holdings, a private-equity firm focused on modernizing traditional businesses through technology. A powerline-construction acquisition in Nova Scotia revealed the operational challenges facing grid maintenance teams and sparked the idea for Detect.
In this episode, Matt shares how Detect applies AI to help utilities move from reactive maintenance to earlier, data-driven intervention. He discusses how the company’s platform brings together imagery and field data to surface hidden risks, reduce the burden of manual inspections, and help teams direct resources toward the assets that need attention most.
Tune in to hear how AI-enabled inspection workflows are reshaping utility operations, why data quality and speed matter for grid reliability, and what it takes to deploy autonomous intelligence across critical infrastructure at scale.
