Today we were thrilled to welcome Jeremy Fraenkel, CEO, and Brennan Demro, Chief Commercial Officer, of Fundamental. We had the opportunity to spend the day with Jeremy and Brennan in Houston visiting with a number of energy companies to discuss how Fundamental’s AI technology can be applied across the industry. Fundamental is developing a new category of AI that helps enterprises turn structured data into predictive intelligence, enabling better forecasting, decision-making, and operational performance.
In our conversation, we discuss a critical but often underappreciated area of AI: structured and tabular data. Jeremy explains that while large language models have transformed how people work with text, code, images, and video, the vast majority of enterprise data still lives in structured formats, from spreadsheets and databases to sensor data and transaction logs. Fundamental has built Nexus, a foundation model trained on billions of tables. Jeremy and Brennan describe how Fundamental’s model differs from traditional LLMs, particularly around determinism, security, and enterprise deployment. While LLMs can produce different outputs with small changes in wording, Fundamental is designed to deliver consistent, auditable predictions for critical business decisions. We discuss how Fundamental complements large language models within agentic AI workflows, serving as the predictive engine for enterprise data while LLMs handle unstructured information. Rather than replacing LLMs, Jeremy argues that enterprise AI requires both capabilities: LLMs for language and reasoning, and purpose-built models for structured data and prediction.
Brennan highlights the company’s ability to deploy within a customer’s own environment, helping address major enterprise concerns around data security and control. We explore how their technology can be applied across energy, including predictive maintenance, asset optimization, demand forecasting, inventory and working capital management, and back-office efficiency. Brennan emphasizes that many energy companies are sitting on decades of rich but underutilized data, and how Fundamental’s approach can help unlock insights from those data sets while augmenting existing data science workflows rather than replacing them. We also touch on AI adoption, proof-of-concept challenges, governance, reliability, and the importance of pairing AI tools with measurable business ROI.
Mike Bradley opened the discussion by noting that financial markets have been relatively subdued over the past five trading days. He reviewed year-to-date performance across several key asset classes, including fixed income markets, broad equity indices, energy equities, electric-centric equities, and oil and natural gas commodities. He highlighted several significant market-moving events that have influenced performance across bonds, equities, and commodity markets this year, providing context behind recent market trends and investor sentiment. Robby Kester and Veriten Senior Advisor Deborah Byers also joined and added their technology perspectives and questions throughout the conversation.
We greatly enjoyed hosting Jeremy and Brennan in our offices and hope you enjoy the conversation as much as we did. To our Canadian friends, Happy Canada Day! And to everyone celebrating America’s 250th Independence Day this week, we wish you a wonderful Fourth of July!