Comparative Analysis of Single and Multiagent Large Language Model Architectures for Domain-Specific Tasks in Well Construction

Summary This paper explores the application of large language models (LLMs) in the oil and gas (O&G) sector, specifically within well construction and maintenance tasks. The study evaluates the performances of a single agent and a multiagent LLM-based architecture in processing different tasks, offering a comparative perspective on their accuracy and the cost implications of their implementation. The results indicate that multiagent systems offer improved performance in question and answer (Q&A) tasks, with a truthfulness measure 28% higher than single-agent systems but at a higher financial cost. Specifically, the multiagent architecture incurs costs that are, on average, 3.7 times higher than those of the single-agent setup due to the increased number of tokens processed. Conversely, single-agent systems excel in Text-to-SQL (structured query language) tasks, particularly when using the Generative Pre-Trained Transformer 4 (GPT-4), achieving a 15% higher score compared to multiagent configurations, suggesting that simpler architectures can sometimes outpace complexity. The novelty of this work lies in its original examination of the specific challenges presented by the complex, technical, unstructured data inherent in well construction operations, contributing to strategic planning for adopting generative artificial intelligence (AI) (Gen-AI) applications and providing a basis for optimizing solutions against economic and technological parameters.