What powers reinvention at NRG

For decades, power companies were the definition of dull. Powering your home was necessary but uninspiring, a commodity no different than running water. NRG Energy is proving that view outdated with acquisitions, partnerships, and a willingness to reimagine what a power generator can be, turning electricity into an engaging experience.

“Energy providers have always been thought of as the background players in people’s lives,” says Dak Liyanearachchi, the company’s EVP and CTO. “Our job now is to move to the foreground and show that energy can be personal and intelligent.”

From residential power to connected experiences

NRG began as a power generator before broadening its reach to serve residential customers. In recent years, it’s redefined its consumer strategy by bringing together electricity, smart home solutions, and digital platforms. The acquisition of Vivint Smart Home and partnerships with Renew Home gave NRG the foundation to link thermostats, energy services, and residential devices into one ecosystem, unlocking the potential of virtual power plant (VPP) technology.

A VPP aggregates distributed resources like thermostats, batteries, and rooftop solar across thousands of homes. Coordinated effectively, it becomes a flexible network that shifts demand, balances supply, and supports the grid during times of crisis.

The result is energy management that feels seamless and intentional. The Vivint and Nest thermostats don’t just heat and cool, they dynamically reduce demand on the grid during peak hours, improving reliability while realizing new capabilities for the company. Consumers see lower bills and greater comfort, but behind the scenes, the technology powers something larger.

In Texas, where extreme weather and surging demand from AI data centers can strain the grid, NRG’s VPP approach provides resilience. The company is targeting a gigawatt of capacity, enough to power hundreds of thousands of homes without building a single new plant.

“This isn’t just about keeping the lights on,” Liyanearachchi explains. “It’s about turning millions of small resources into a collective force that ensures reliability, reduces costs, and creates value for everyone.”

Rewiring technology to match strategy

NRG’s consumer story wouldn’t be possible without reimagining how technology operates inside the company. Under Liyanearachchi’s leadership, NRG has moved to a product operating model, aligning business and technology teams around shared outcomes rather than siloed projects.

“Historically, electricity providers approached technology as a request and deliver model,” he says. “The business would hand over requirements, and six to 12 months later, technology would deliver, often out of sync with the need. We knew that wasn’t sustainable if we wanted to bring smart home and energy into one seamless experience.”

The shift has introduced budget transparency, empowered business leaders to set technology priorities, and created a single cadence for planning and execution. Quarterly sessions also bring residential power, smart home, and energy teams together to align on customer priorities and deliver integrated products.

When developing new home energy offerings, NRGs’ teams now also span smart home, energy, engineering, and business leaders. The result is concepts moving quickly into products delivered to millions of households.

Additionally, AI enablement throughout the software development lifecycle is poised to continue pushing the operating model toward leaner, faster deployment, while promoting democratized AI usage by non-technology team members.

“The product operating model has given us a shared language,” Liyanearachchi says. “It’s no longer about technology supporting the business from the sidelines. We’re building solutions together, side by side.”

The AI catalyst

AI runs through NRG’s industry and internal strategies, and traditional machine learning powers personalization, fraud detection, and forecasting. Plus, generative AI has opened new horizons, particularly in customer care and sales, where it reduces friction and improves both customer and employee experience.

“We see AI through two lenses,” Liyanearachchi says. “One is industry wide with the surge of data centers, EV adoption, and smart devices creating unprecedented demand for power. AI will be part of managing that. The second is internal, using AI to transform how we work, from forecasting weather driven demand to reimagining customer interactions.”

NRG’s transformation office plays a central role, too, looking beyond immediate use cases to envision the business of 2030. Forecasting demand with more precision, integrating renewables, and managing a grid strained by AI workloads are all on the agenda as well.

Building for unprecedented demand

States like Texas, Georgia, and Virginia face surging energy consumption from population growth, electrification, and AI driven data centers. Left unchecked, that demand could result in brownouts or blackouts.

NRG is addressing this challenge on two fronts: through its VPP strategy, which reduces strain on the grid by orchestrating demand at scale, and through continued investment in traditional generation to ensure reliability by acquiring assets such as the Rockland portfolio, which closed earlier this year, and pursuing additional opportunities like LS Power (subject to close).

“It isn’t either or,” Liyanearachchi adds. “The future of energy will be both virtual and physical. We’re investing in power plants and power pixels, the distributed intelligence that turns homes into part of the solution.”

Lessons for leaders

For Fortune 500 CIOs, NRG’s transformation is more than a power provider story. It’s a playbook for reinvention. Energy may be the context, but the underlying themes resonate across industries.

NRG shows what it looks like to turn a commodity into an experience, shifting electricity from a background service into something customers actively value. It demonstrates how aligning business and technology through a product operating model can move IT from service provider to co-creator. It also highlights how AI can serve not only as an efficiency driver, but as a catalyst to reimagine how the business operates and engages customers.

The reminder is clear that even the most commoditized industries can reinvent themselves. The real question is whether leaders are ready to challenge assumptions and rewire their organizations to make it happen.

For NRG, the days of being seen as just another power provider are over. The company is showing that transformation isn’t reserved for digital natives. It’s available to any industry bold enough to put experience at the center.

“Power may never be sexy in the traditional sense, but when you deliver comfort, reliability, and innovation into people’s homes, and reshape how the grid works in the process, that’s pretty exciting,” says Liyanearachchi.