We need to ask a more fundamental question about offshore operations: why are people there at all? As the maritime industry grapples with intensifying cost pressures and urgent decarbonization mandates, the legacy model of sending large crews to sea is hitting its operational limits. Ocean Infinity’s President of Data Services, Carsten Haagensen, argues that true progress requires moving past simple, incremental upgrades to traditional vessels. Instead, the real paradigm shift lies in a complete structural redesign, shifting execution onshore and using advanced marine robotics to remove routine human exposure entirely.
We need to ask a more fundamental question about offshore operations: why are people there at all?
For decades, the industry has improved safety, efficiency, and cost through better tools and oversight, but within an operating model that has barely changed. That approach is now reaching its limits.
I’ve sat in countless conversations with customers, partners, and industry stakeholders discussing how technology should transform offshore operations. Yet these conversations rarely translate into real change, at least not at the pace we’d like. The barriers are not technical; they lie in the rigid frameworks that define our industry: regulatory, contractual, and commercial, all of which consistently favor what is familiar over what is possible.
Now, rising complexity, tighter margins, and higher expectations on safety and sustainability are exposing the limits of that approach. Optimizing a legacy model will only ever deliver marginal gains.
The Core Flaw of the Legacy Model
At the heart of that legacy model is a single assumption: that people must be at sea for work to get done. Everything flows from that, crewing, vessel design, logistics, and safety systems.
Other high-risk industries have already used technology to redesign work and remove people from harm’s way. Maritime has moved more slowly. The question is no longer whether change is possible, but why offshore operations are still organized this way.
Technology has improved visibility and control, but managing risk is not the same as removing it. While the industry calls for innovation, procurement and tendering processes continue to reinforce established approaches, making meaningful change inherently difficult to introduce.
Incremental improvement optimizes how we organize people offshore. Redesign asks the harder question: do they need to be there at all?
Moving Beyond the Vessel-Centric Mindset
Challenging that assumption has always meant pushing beyond what feels proven. Early on, we were told that deploying multiple autonomous underwater vehicles at scale would not work. We did it anyway, and it worked. We proved that offshore work could be delivered differently, at scale, and with better outcomes.
Much of the industry still frames progress around the vessel: its size and capability. But the more meaningful shift is where work is planned, controlled, and executed. Real change happens when execution moves onshore and offshore activity is managed as a connected system. That’s where the operating model truly shifts.
One of the clearest signs of genuine change is when long-held assumptions quietly fall away. In recent operations, our work has been delivered with real-time data streamed directly to clients onshore, removing the historic expectation that a client representative must be physically present at sea to make decisions. Oversight and trust remained intact, but offshore exposure was reduced, challenging one of the industry’s most deeply embedded norms.
In some cases, this logic has gone further. Where persistence and risk reduction matter most, our uncrewed vessels now deliver 24/7, year-round surveillance and security operations without people at sea at all. Faced with higher complexity, the answer has not been to optimize crewed operations further, but to remove routine exposure and redesign the operational model around that choice.
Relocating Expertise, Not Eliminating It
It’s important to say that uncrewed does not equate to eliminating people; it relocates expertise.
When planning, monitoring, and decision-making are centered onshore—supported by robotics, data, and remote operations—consistency improves, unnecessary exposure is reduced, and expertise can be applied across more operations with less dependence on offshore conditions. In this model, vessels become platforms for execution rather than floating workplaces. That distinction is fundamental.
This shift also changes the trade-offs. Operations designed around automation, robotics, and remote execution are lower-carbon, as well as safer, by definition.
The technology needed to transform offshore operations already exists and is operating offshore today. What limits progress is the willingness to move away from people-heavy, asset-intensive models that still feel familiar. In this context, familiarity is the real risk.
The Real Constraint: Mindsets Over Technology
Redesign is harder because it requires rethinking responsibility, trust, and assurance when people are no longer routinely exposed. Operating models and mindsets move more slowly than technology and, today, they are the primary constraint.
In December 2025, we completed our vessel line-up, built around transformation from the outset. But this was not the endpoint; it was the starting point. The vessels are not the transformation, they are the enablers, forcing leaner crewing today and allowing execution to move onshore over time.
The next phase of offshore transformation will not come from further optimization of legacy systems. It will come from organizations willing to remain open-minded, to question long-held assumptions, and to engage seriously with a fundamentally different way of working.
What is striking is that this shift is already underway. The organizations under the greatest operational, safety, and sustainability pressure are beginning to define what “good” looks like next: raising the bar for safety, improving consistency of delivery, and materially reducing the environmental impact of offshore operations.
The opportunity is clear, but only if we are prepared to redesign, not just improve.
About the Author
Carsten Haagensen is the President of Data Services at Ocean Infinity, a leading marine robotics and data analytics company driving the transformation toward uncrewed and remote maritime operations. Recognized on Børsen’s prestigious “Topleder” (Leaders of the Future) list, Haagensen is an experienced international executive with a proven track record across the maritime, oil and gas, and green technology sectors, including prior high-level commercial roles at Maersk Supply Service and Maersk Drilling. He holds degrees from Copenhagen Business School alongside advanced executive leadership credentials from Harvard Business School, IMD, and London Business School.
About Ocean Infinity
Ocean Infinity is a technology-driven marine robotics and data analytics pioneer that is fundamentally transforming operations at sea. By designing, building, and operating advanced robotic and uncrewed systems, such as its newly completed 14-vessel Armada fleet, the company delivers complex offshore operations with a major emphasis on safety, efficiency, and reduced environmental impact. Driven by a pragmatic team of engineers, technologists, and remote operators, Ocean Infinity bridges advanced software with deep maritime expertise to prove that a safer, lower-carbon, and highly connected onshore-to-offshore operational model is already a reality.
Source: Ocean Infinity | Carsten Haagensen